Super Smash Universe: Online Edition
by CEObrainz
Summary: The game we all know and love has finally turned into an MMO, what happens when a group of people get trapped into the game and have to fight for their lives? Dying is not an option unless you wan't to lose your actual life!
1. Chapter 1

Super Smash Universe: Online Edition

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><p>Please read this page before going into the story, even if this is not your first time reading this it has changed since first published.<p>

The story is about a group of players, their interactions with each other and a greater threat that looms in the background. Set on a slightly futuristic earth, the game we all know and love has finally gone MMO, what happens when a group of people get trapped into the game and have to fight for their lives.

As of March 2015 this story will have gone through a major overhaul. This is mainly because I've lost my original files regarding the project as well as losing the main plot behind the story. For this reason I am rewriting everything I have posted so far, although I intend on keeping the characters, areas and ideas that have previously been published. I also want to give a brief apology to any people who were waiting to see their OC and didn't see them. Since I posted the last chapter I had gone through quite a low writing-wise, including the publication of a book (The Legend of Faro: A Tale of Two Shadows), finish other stories and officially putting the group project (Everybody's Brawl) into its closing phase. There was also the audio version of this story that I had planned on doing, whilst it was an ambitious project it didn't get enough attention or manpower to be completed so as a result was scrapped.

I'll also be responding to reviews and questions (Not OC's) at the start of every chapter.

What most people will be interested in are the OC's. I will keep the ones I've already written in but when I overwrite some chapters I will lose the ones that have been submitted via reviews. I intend on using as many OC's as possible, that way each character can be unique and really create a sense of an online community. For this reason I will still collect OC's submitted via reviews after this chapter is posted. The format will be like this:

**Name:** Choose any name that you want within reason.

**Race:** This can be any race that has appeared in a Nintendo game to this date, not only human but Goomba's, Koopa's, Gorons, Zora's, Angels, etc. I included the race Smasher as a plot device, though if you choose this your Second Class is automatically Smasher. I would like more characters that aren't human or human-like (e.g. Angel or Hylian). Also I may not know which game the race you chose is from so I would appreciate if you put in brackets what game the race you choose is from.

A note about the Smasher Race, these are human characters with stronger Special moves than the average player. That doesn't mean that a Level 51 Hylian can't beat a Smasher of the same level.

**Gender:** Remember some races such as Goron's don't have females so to become a female Goron would be incredibly awkward/weird.

**Class One:** This covers just about every type of class that would be available in a MMO; you can choose any one you want. Example of Classes: Warrior, Knight, Mage, Archer, Healer, etc...

(Note: Class 1 = Standard Attacks, Class 2 = Special Attacks)

**Class Two: **You have the same options as class one; however you cannot choose the same class twice. I also added the class Smasher here for those that chose Smasher as a race, such as my character. You can also chose a different race and have the class Smasher if you want. Example of Classes: Smasher, Warrior, Knight, Mage, Archer, Healer, etc...

**Appearance:** I love some of the descriptions; they are cool and incredibly useful for what I need.

**Personality:** I also like the things you write here, they are useful too.

Below are some examples of characters that I can use in my story:

**CHARACTER ONE**

**Name:** Hammy

**Race:** Boo (Mario Bros.)

**Gender:** Female

**Class One:** Mage

**Class Two:** Healer

**Appearance:** Light blue in colour, this Boo is smaller than most Boo's and has two tails.

**Personality:** Hammy loves to play tricks on his friends, sometimes even getting them really annoyed. Although when the time comes Hammy is a good person and will always help her friends.

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><p><strong>CHARACTER TWO<strong>

**Name:** Stanley

**Race:** Zora (The Legend of Zelda)

**Gender:** Male

**Class One:** Fighter

**Class Two:** Smasher

**Appearance:** This Zora wears light green clothing in tribute to Link. He has a medium build and his fins are razor sharp.

**Personality:** Stanley loves to have fun; however he has a short temper and will rush into battle if provoked even a little.

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><p><strong>CHARACTER THREE<strong>

**Name:** Bothell

**Race:** Smasher

**Gender:** Male

**Class One:** Necromancer

**Class Two:** Smasher (No choice here)

**Appearance:** Always seen wearing a black cloak, this shady figure has no distinguishable feature resulting in him being forgotten about very easily.

**Personality:** Bothell hates company often trying to avoid it, why he chose to play this game no one knows, however he has a desire to corrupt people with his negative views.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoy the new version of Super Smash Universe: Online Edition!

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

My room was currently perfect.

The time on my computer showed 9:32. A few minutes later and I was logged in to my email, quickly scanning through the list of junk mail I'd received that week. Although nothing special, there was always the chance I'd missed something.

The chair I sat on was quite expensive, I'd saved up for 3 weeks before being able to purchase my surround sound gaming chair that I wirelessly linked to my headset. Everything else in my room was set out in relation to my PC, the bed, book shelf full of games and my hardware cupboard.

That was certainly something I was proud of.

My cupboard featured a plethora of a PC parts, wires and peripherals that I'd messed around with for years. I was currently studying an electronics class at university and felt relaxed whenever I discussed some of the crazier things I'd tried to put together. I also used it to store my secret stash of games, the ones that I never wanted others to see. Some may call it paranoia especially as I live alone, but there was never any guarantee that a friend wouldn't happen to see it.

If one ever came over.

To me my PC was a gateway to an online world that I felt at home in. The virtual faces that I saw everyday were closer to me than I cared to admit, although some of us lived on opposite ends of the world I always spoke with them on a first name basis, we'd become family on certain message boards. Online gaming was no exception, the games I played where with members of tightly knit communities, each one respected as experts of their genre.

Perhaps that's what I liked most, the discussions.

As much as I loved my PC, I'd always had a soft spot for Nintendo games. There was something about them that always entranced me, whether it was the space-faring adventures of Samus Aran to the colourful platforming action that was Mario. Some of my online friends knew of my personal preference with Nintendo but only one or two really knew how much I loved their games.

It was 15 or so minutes after I'd logged in that a friend messaged me.

_Hey Lucas, check out this new Smash game. I can't believe we missed this. Buy it now!_

Soon after posting the message he also sent a link looked highly familiar.

"Super Smash Bros, really?" I contemplated the thought of a new game coming out so soon, however one wasn't scheduled for at least a year or two.

In all honesty I'd tried to avoid anything gaming related for as much as possible. In the last few months I'd been swamped with exams, coursework and work. The others on my course had also experienced such a rough time. What little free time we did have was used to talk about old games and wallow in our gaming nostalgia.

I clicked on the link and was taken to Nintendo's main site where they were advertising the new game everywhere. The page explained how in only a few minutes a new MMO called Super Smash Universe: Online Edition would be released online for a one off fee that looked rather expensive or set up a monthly subscription. I messaged my friend telling him I would consider getting it and that I was going to go offline for a bit. After closing the messaging program, I got up and started going through a whole lot of papers scattered everywhere, when I found the one I was looking for, my latest bank statement, I was more than relieved to find that I had enough money to purchase the game in its entirety. The one-of payment was worth the money if it was as good as any of the past Smash Bros games and knowing Nintendo's history there wasn't much to worry about.

Getting back onto the computer I quickly checked the time...9:56. In four minutes the game was going to be released and I literally couldn't wait.

_Even with exams, how did I miss something this big? _

I scrolled through the website and noticed a small advert different from the ones plastered all over the website. It said that anyone who bought a pre-paid copy from this link would get secret items. Being cautious I decided to check the link, it took me to a page that looked completely legit, especially as my browser confirmed the pages certificate. As I read through the page quickly I got my bank card ready to use, this offer was about to expire in less than 3 minutes and I had to be quick.

Filling out the form was an easy process and the money cleared from my account a little too quickly. I was now the proud owner of a very new game. A link came up on my page taking me to the download area and I noticed the time just went 10. However as I reached the download page, a message popped onto the screen:

_Thank you for purchasing the Super Smash Universe: Online Edition Game._

_We hope that you enjoy your experience and to help things we have included a special gift that will be added to your account once it has been made. _

_From Sakurai and the Smash Team_

I shrugged not really taking much notice and quickly went about downloading the game. Due to my ever increasing internet speed the download was completed in less than 20 minutes. For a 28 GB file that was quite quick. I made sure that I would have no interruptions for the next couple of hours and installed the game.

As I clicked the newly installed short-cut on my desktop I received a small message from the game. It suggested that I use a Nintendo-PC controller and headset. I dug my GameCube controller out of my controller rack and connected my headset. I used a GameCube to PC adapter to connect my controller then pressed OK once the computer had recognised the device.

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><p>The screen went black for a few moments and suddenly the Nintendo logo appeared in all its glory. A short introduction to the game passed by just like its console counterparts, some well-done CGI cuteness put together some sort of story about different characters coming together to fight a common enemy. However being very impatient I pressed a button to skip the video and go straight to the menu. Before being able to do anything a notification came up.<p>

_Thank you for installing this game, as this is your first time starting this application we require the details used to buy the game in-putted for verification purposes._

Some boxes appeared on screen allowing me to put information such as my name, address and bank card number. I quickly filled all this information out and verified the game. A message saying thank you came up and I closed it quickly. Just before I clicked on the New Character button another message popped up, this time the familiar achievement sound from Brawl played.

_Congratulations on being qualified to receive our **special opening gift**. Only **50 **other users in the world were quick enough to see our 5 minute deal. To receive our **gift **press the OK button and create a **New Character**._

"What...? Five minutes only?" That could only mean that I was incredibly lucky to even see the advertisement.

I clicked OK and the screen took me to the Character Creator.

The new theme song started and a box appeared asking for a username. I thought really hard but was unable to come up with anything special, so I decided to name my new character Madrack after a character from one of my favourite books. After clicking OK I was given the choice between many different races to pick from. I came to the conclusion that each race stood for a different game and each race must have had sub-races. I scrolled through the list looking for one that caught my eye; however they all seemed average, weak and slightly boring by Nintendo standards. I was then surprised when I saw at the bottom of the list an entry that looked like it was there specifically for me. In bold letter the words **Smasher – Gift **being the last entry.

"Ahh...so that's what they meant by free gift."

I decided to accept my gift and go to the next section; the game gave me the option to choose between Male and Female, so I chose a Male avatar. I was then shown a list of variables that allowed me to shape my character in whatever way I wanted. After 20 or so minutes of messing around I chose to remain with a human shape, having short white hair and a slightly tanned skin. My character had a medium build, used my most characters in games, as that seemed to be the best option. I also decided to give my character dark blue eyes as I thought they looked especially cool in the games new graphical engine.

As I clicked on the button to bring the next section up, I was given the option to choose my class.

From what I understood, I could only pick two classes; a primary and secondary one that would be set throughout the game. I scrolled through the options that were available to me and chose a Knight as my main class, however as I went to choose my second class I found that I could not change it from the pre-set that was already there. It seemed that by picking Smasher as my race the same special gift became my secondary class as well.

I accepted this and clicked the next button.

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><p>A short cut scene appeared showing my character being drawn to life, turned into a trophy and being transported into some dimension of sorts. The screen went black then everything hit me. The first thing I noticed was that the old battlefield theme from Brawl was playing in the background. Then I noticed what I could actually see, the graphics were astonishing. I could see in detail the stadium around me, the crowd of NPC's and the fact that Mario was attacking me!<p>

I quickly gripped my controller and pressed a button, a window on the side of the screen gave me some useful instructions telling me how to attack and defend myself. I quickly realised that the controls for battle were really like the games already out. This meant that I was easily able to take on the NPC. I jumped above one of Mario's sweeping kicks and landed on his head, then I used my fist and punched the NPC as hard I could into the ground, a small bar popped up onto the top of the screen. It had the words **Mario LP** next to them. It seemed that this battle was then a stamina battle and Mario had only taken 3 Damage.

I continually attacked the NPC, learning what my character could do and following the tips that the game gave me. It turned out that every character has a stamina bar that lets players move slightly quicker for a short amount of time. This bar is built up from the attacks I have dealt and received. I also noticed that I was not using any Mana Attacks, while I was not exactly surprised I was slightly disappointed that I wouldn't have any basic spells, that was until I performed my first Special Attack.

These moves did use Mana and also seemed to make the game slightly clearer. My Primary class being Knight meant that all my standard attacks, tilts and smashes would be of a melee type. My Secondary class of Smasher offered a rarer Special attack it seemed. It looked as if I took over half the opponent's life away in one hit. If I was that strong now, then I could only imagine how strong I would be when I reached a higher level. But then I noticed something in the corner, the NPC opponent I was facing was a level -10 Fighter/Mage. I almost face palmed the desk at making such an amateurish assumption.

After putting the NPC in its place, a message popped up on my screen saying that I had finished the first quest of the game. A cut scene then came on that lasted for what seemed like an hour, it was some person who apparently was going to be my assistant helper until I reached level 10. After the cut scene was over I was given the chance to hang around the stadium map and challenge more NPC characters or head over to the main game.

Against my better judgement I decided to hang around and build up my level a bit. I fought a Marth and Sheik before levelling up twice. It turned out I received 300 coins for levelling up adding to the 2700 I received as a starter gift. I tried to fight again however a message popped up with the image of my assistant's head.

"I'm sorry Master, all the fighters are too afraid to face you at their level. You can either leave or visit the stadium shop over there." An arrow popped up on the screen pointing towards a shop.

The first thing I noticed was that the game had changed perspective. The camera had moves to an almost isometric view, similar to post MMO's where I was given free movement. I walked over to a shop and used the B button to talk to the NPC standing there, it looked like a normal teenager wearing a shirt that had the Smash logo on it.

"Hello stranger, how can I help you today?" the voice seemed so real I almost replied to the guy.

As he had spoken a window appeared, displaying a list of many items. Shaking off my amazement I scrolled though the armour the merchant seemed to be selling. A model of my character came up on the screen, currently I was wearing some simple robes that made me look like an Egyptian aristocrat. I saw some pretty sweet armour sets that were extremely expensive and I doubted anyone would be able to buy those for a long time. I kept on scrolling into the more affordable section until I came across something that once again was unique.

SMASH WARRIOR ARMOUR – ON OFFER REQUIRES **3000 **COINS!

I once again, rolled my eyes at how lucky I was to catch that offer. Most players would only get 2700 coins after beating the NPC's here and levelling up twice. However I received a 300 coin bonus that allowed me to afford the armour. I clicked on the preview button to see how it looked at I was kind of impressed. On my character the armour made me look like a combination of Marth and Ganondorf, although the armour was mostly a navy blue colour with a white trim. The Smash logo was visible on the shoulder parts and the back. I quickly purchased the set and a new screen popped up.

**THANK YOU FOR BUYING ARMOUR FROM ME! HERE HAVE THIS FREE WEAPON!**

Without warning my inventory opened and a bag with a question mark on it appeared in the middle on the screen. I quickly took my hand off the controller and used my mouse to move the cursor and click on it. As the bag opened, a small fanfare was heard as well as a shower of virtual confetti. I was mildly surprised to see that I had obtained a weapon called The Dragon Blight. I quickly dragged it into my weapons slot and exited the menu.

Another message popped up, this time showing me how to navigate the menu's using only the controller. I chuckled to myself, knowing that the programmers must have thought of many small details and closed the message with my controller.

On the map a circular sphere was visible in a corner of the stadium, a sign nearby clearly ladled the area as the exit. I headed towards the portal that would take me to the main world.

"Well, here goes nothing..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

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><p>The city I'd warped into was familiar. It took a few seconds to realise but although I hadn't kept up with the Pokémon games or Anime I could assuredly see the resemblance. As I looked around a few players faced me with interest. Just as I wondered why their avatars were doing that I'd discover that whenever you move the cursor over another player your in-game avatar would also turn to face them, thanks to my assistant with her helpful messages. I looked again at some of the characters, a few were levelled 1-2, some were 3 -5 and a small amount were already higher than 7.<p>

"Whoa...I didn't realise I was in training that long." I said to myself quietly.

"Yea most of us were there for some time."

I turned around to look at the person who was speaking to me, a small audio icon popped up over their head. It was then that I also realised I could hear other players talking too, but their voices sounded quite distant. I came to the conclusion that players who were further away sounded less distant and you would only hear players at all within a certain distance depending on your race, skills and perhaps special items. My assistant then confirmed this as I rolled my eyes at the attentiveness of the AI and looked back at the player who had spoken to me.

The Warrior who was clearly a Smasher too wore Black hair, styled upwards like an anime character. He also had brown eyes, a regular body shape and wore a short-sleeved T-shirt with some shorts.

"Oh, I didn't expect anyone to hear me. Anyway I'm Lucas, nice to meet you."

"I'm Reece, I'm guessing you haven't started any proper quests yet so how about you join my party and we go on one. I have two friends of mine waiting to play."

"OK, why not..."

I clicked on the invitation that Reece had sent and accepted it. Immediately the sound of other players talking silenced.

"Wow, quiet."

"Yea team speak is like that..." Reece replied.

Reece started walking towards a tall building in the distance I quickly followed and looked around at the other players. All sorts of races were present. A Pikachu looking Pokémon that had metallic stripes on its body seemed to be walking with a female Hylian who was proudly leading it. Behind the two, a human was walking that sported a purple suit and was carrying a weird contraption on its back. I turned away to ask Reece a question but he started sprinting ahead, so I quickly pressed random buttons until the right trigger button allowed my character to start sprinting and catch up with him.

In front of us were two humans, one Male and the other Female.

"Hello, I'm Creed and this is my sister Eclypse. Are we ready to set off Reece?"

I said hello to them and quickly checked on their stats whilst they decided what quest they wanted to go on. I noticed something weird and decided to bring it up.

"Eclypse, how come you only have one class?"

Everyone paused and looked at me; Reece was the first to speak.

"You know, I don't know too, why is it that you have one class?"

Eclypse's avatar did a little motion where she put herself into a meditative state.

"I don't know. Perhaps we will find out later on or perhaps I've hacked the game."

"Nonsense, I'm right next to you, if you hacked the game I would notice." Creed spoke up.

I shrugged and looked at everyone's items, apart from Eclypse they all had that special Smasher armour. So that meant that they were also as broke as me.

"Alright so what quest are we going on?" I asked.

"Well, we thought it was best if we followed the story line of this game, you know...getting the max enjoyment out of this and all that...so we are going to go on Sky-world – Rush 1!" Creed said slightly excited, "Plus it's like the only free one available..."

"That sounds awesome, let's start then!" I quickly replied and followed the other members as they entered a building with the letter Q on it.

Inside the building, I could see many players sitting down and talking at tables. One or two waved to me and I quickly learned how to wave back. As our group walked up to the front desk I was reminded of another game where quests were started in this fashion. I waited for Reece to finish setting up the quest and before I knew it a cut scene started.

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><p>A woman, dressed in a white Chiton, flew into the room. She looked exhausted, covered in bruises, cuts and a strange green slime. Seeming to only notice Reece, she approached the male and knelt at his feet. Text appeared on screen as the woman spoke, the style similar to that of a Zelda game.<p>

"Brave warrior, please help me. My people have been keeping the forces of Medusa back for as long as we could but our **Captain** has disappeared and we have no real strategy. I fear the monsters may break through our ranks within a few days. Will you help me and of these creatures."

I looked at the word "Captain" that was bolded and coloured red in comparison to the cream text. It was quite obvious that this character was important. I noticed that Reece's character nodded as well as the other members of the party. The woman smiled a bit and continued to talk.

"Thank you, I believe if you slay their commander, known as Krakow. We may be able to push their forces back onto the lowlands, where it will be easier to hold them at bay or possibly drive them off." The woman produced a bag and gave it to Reece, she then bowed and left quietly.

"Umm...what now?" I asked, but before anyone could reply another cut scene had already started.

A huge metallic ship sporting a rather boastful smash logo was seen flying through the clouds as quick as possible. Four figures jumped off the ship and landed on what could only be thought to be the scenery from the Kid Icarus Uprising sequel. The screen then turned to black and changed back into game mode. I noticed a few things at first, that being my screen being spammed with messages from the game. I tried to read them all, but I ended up losing my patience and closing them. Everybody else was still silent, obviously reading. I decided to look at my own equipment and check out my sword. Dragon Blight was of level 7 rarity and according to the scale on the weapon window; it was half way up the rarity ladder. I checked its stats and found them to be more complicated than a standard MMO, but at this point everybody else had finished reading.

"Are you all done yet?" I asked.

"Umm...yea, did you read it all Lucas?" Creed asked.

"Not really, I got annoyed with the amount of windows and closed them."

"There was some useful information" Reece now finished.

"Yea, did you know that in-between battles we have full 3D control over our characters, but once we come close to an enemy we go into Smash Mode or the 2D perspective like the games?"

"Wow, I had no idea Creed. Thanks, I guess I need to pay attention next time." I replied, my voice practically dripping with sarcasm.

I could feel Creed sporting a smug smile behind his avatar.

"Alright enough chat let's go!" Eclypse almost shouted.

We all agreed and ventured into the clouds.

(Line Break)

About 5 minutes into our mission we found ourselves witnessing one of the most beautiful sights we ever expected to see. In front of us a valley expanded for what seemed like forever, a path no bigger than 6 meters wide, was formed between two rock formations and the path seemed to lead to a huge city in the distance.

"Wow...I haven't seen graphics like this since I used to game on PC!" Creed moved forwards then paused for a second "Damn it, look guys!"

We all rotated our cameras and were immediately greeted by a team of 2 Primids. The camera changed position going into that 2D state known as Smash Mode and a countdown began.

"Alright, ready guys?" I asked with confidence.

"Yea..!" Everyone was pumped up this was our first proper battle after all and we had the advantage.

An indicator came up on the screen showing the lives of the two Primids and the level. It seemed that both Primids had a level of 5 and had roughly half the health any of us had.

Once in Smash Mode I was in my zone, immediately I ran towards the closest enemy and slashed with my sword, then Creed appeared above our heads and slashed the Primid with a dagger. The move took away a quarter of the enemies HP but left Creed in a temporary helpless state. Reece and I backed him up with our melee attacks, Reece giving out a barrage of quick punches; this was a taxing move and also put Reece in a state. It was then that we all saw the power of Eclypse. She appeared to be a light pink Primid with similar moves to the monster and even boosted stats. She had already defeated the second Primid with ease using a mixture of her dagger skills and the newly adopted Shadow Bug Punch.

I performed a special move with my sword, swinging it in a great arc; this resulted in a wave of red energy consuming the Primid and in result causing it to explode in defeat.

"That was easy enough..." I said to no one in particular. Both Reece and Creed were astonished at Eclipses' power. After receiving our XP and a few coins, we continued on our journey. Back in Free Mode, I was able to run ahead and scope the land however Reece was more suited for the job with his faster speed and better stealth abilities.

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><p>After about 15 minutes of journeying, I got bored of the silence and started up a conversation.<p>

"What do you prefer Melee or Brawl?"

Creed started sniggering like I said something dirty unintentionally.

"Please don't start that now, I had like, a 2 hour discussion with my friend the other day and we still didn't come to an agreement." Reece sighed.

"Oh...right, no problem."

Another 10 minutes past and we came into contact with a larger group or Primids. However this time they were all carrying beam swords.

"There must be like 100 of them!" Creed complained.

"Or to be more specific 20" Eclypse answered even though no one asked yet.

"Whatever, let's just get in their!" I said and with that rushed into the large group. As expected Reece got their first and had already decimated the first Primid with a uncharged Hammer Fist smash.

"Guys these are level 1, we can take them on!"

We all saw this for ourselves as we entered Smash Mode. Everyone took out 3 Primids each before Eclypse got hit. The Primid had slashed at her ankle, giving her temporary paralysis.

I went over to back her up and unleashed one of my specials known as Archons Kiloton, where I smashed my sword down into the ground, dealing major damage to the Primid I hit and also causing shockwave damage to the nearby Primids. The battle was soon over as Eclypse quickly recovered and got back into action.

"Well that was easy, what else is there?" Creed boasted almost laughing.

However his celebration was cut short as a cinematic started showing the entrance of what can be assumed to be the Mini-Boss of the level. A big Primid holding duel swords that crackled with electricity entered the area, walking very calmly, unlike normal Primids. This monster looked directly at us and I would have thought that it would be smiling, if it had a mouth.

The cinematic ended and a window popped up.

**QUEST UPDATED: KILL BIG BOOLIN THE GIANT PRIMID**

The computer showed its level as 9 and its health to be more than all of our health combined. I groaned slightly and got ready for battle, this was going to be a long fight.

Instead of the monster attacking straight away, it jumped backwards and started charging it's swords, we were mostly confused and Creed started running towards the monster. With less than 2 steps between Creed and the Monster I thought that the guy would successfully get an attack in. However as Reece would say a moment later, it was a trap.

"Look out!" we all shouted simultaneously.

The Primid unleashed a powerful wave of electrify that hit Creed and also travelled towards us. We managed to dodge it but Creed suffered dearly. His health was now below 10% and was clearly in need of help.

Eclypse rushed in, now looking like a normal Primid with a beam sword. She fought valiantly however her efforts were not enough to defend Creed and both their lives were taken.

"Damn it!" I shouted, annoyed that my newfound friends had died on the first mission, however neither Creed nor Eclypse could hear us; they were now probably re-spawning at the Quest centre. I got angry and launched a counter attack at the monster, Reece joined in and we unleashed a combo of our specials, this move alone brought the CPU's bar to just above half. However Reece had used up most of his MP and he was unable to perform any special moves for a while. I wasn't faring any better with just enough MP for one move I hadn't tried yet.

Reece's normal attacks were barely scratching the CPU, whilst the Primid slashed with its swords and halved Reece's life.

"Be careful!" I said moving to help again, and quickly realizing we couldn't win like this.

The Primid charged its swords again, however using a different animation. As it released its attack, both of us got hit and found that we had taken no damage. That was of course the good news, that bad news however was that we were paralysed and were sitting ducks for the Primid. I tried to move but nothing happened.

With no thought in mind, I realised that we were given some items from the lady in the quest. I quickly brought up my inventory as the Primid started walking towards us slowly. I found a bottle of Mysterious potion. However when I used the item all that happened was that my MP got restored.

_That would have been useful if I could move._

As the Primid raised its twin blades I looked at my life, I had barely taken any hits but at this range, the blow would be enough to wipe out both of us. The creature looked directly at us, tilting its head down. I could hear Reece quietly cursing at the situation. However the monster didn't bring down its sword. Instead a blue arrow hit the Primid straight in the forehead and knocked it back slightly. Then a barrage of smaller arrows quickly depleted the Primids life until it was a tiny fraction of its former health. These few seconds gave me the time to recover from the paralysis effect first and attack; I wasted no time and unleashed another of my special move, this time spinning in a tornado towards the Primid and finally giving the level 9 CPU the final blow needed.

A small cinematic showed the creature crying in pain as it dissipated into Shadow Bugs. As the game went back into free mode I looked at my XP, I gained enough points to go up a level and now I was only 2 away from the next level after that. I looked towards the direction the arrows had come from, wanting to thank the person who helped.

The angelic person who seemed to be called Matt had blue wings on the back of his robes and two sets of archery equipment in his hands. One a normal bow and the other looked to be made of bronze and silver.

"Thanks a lot...um, Matt!" I said, looking at his nameplate while I walked up to the guy. "We really appreciate it; we were almost done for back there!"

"Yes, but I have no time for that. You see I was travelling with two other people and we fought that Mini-Boss, who seems to be weak against Angel weapons. As we finished the fight I had decent health, but my companions were almost beaten. Also we had used up our items beforehand. As we got closer to that city over there, we were ambushed by some player who killed my friends!"

I was shocked but not surprised, people killing other players was common in these type of games. I did wonder why people would try to do something like that this early but I was instead wondering how Matt had managed to help them, I was sure that this mission would have been an instance for just our group.

"Who was this PK'er?" I asked my voice had a hint of annoyance in it.

"His name was Major Marin and he was following me, in fact there he is now."

A character wearing heavy armour slowly walked towards us, in his hand a huge axe made of silver reflected the light of the sun. The smile on his face looked incredibly devious. I stepped forwards and almost shouted.

"Are you Major Marin!" the breeze creating an awkward silence, suddenly cut by the raspy voice of the other player.

"Yes, yes I am..." He slowly walked Axe in one hand now, then he charged ready to attack.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

><p>Clash!<p>

The sound of my sword hitting his axe in an attempt to protect my life filled my headset. The camera barely switched into Smash Mode as the force of the attack set me backwards. I quickly checked my HP and MP. Even though I had levelled up, my health didn't fill up again, only increasing slightly. I Tech'd the stage and immediately rushed to counterattack.

"WATCH OUT!" Reece warned me.

I was unsure what he was talking about until I noticed that Major Marin had not moved; he was waiting for me to come towards him. Before I could stop moving forwards, the Smasher swung his axe and hit me with a fully charged smash attack.

If it wasn't for a green arrow hitting me, I would have died.

"Whoa, how did you do that?" I asked after retreating behind Reece.

The angel explained while attempting to hit the enemy with one of his blue arrows.

"I obtained a new skill before I levelled up just now, allowing me to heal others slightly. But seriously, be careful, there was a reason why I ran away from him in the first place!"

I thought the healing power was rather convenient but dismissed the notion as I was too busy with the issue at hand. The level 10 Smasher was a tough opponent to handle but his speed was no match for that of Reece, blocking a barrage of punches; I seized the right moment to jump in and slash with my blade. The heavy character got pushed back almost to the edge of the boundary line that I just learnt were in this game.

"Damn it!" the raspy voice of Major Marin gave me shudders. "I won't let you do that again!"

With about less than half of his HP left and Reece being dangerously low to dying, Major Marin decided to go on the offensive.

"Reece pull back!" The angel commanded, and flew in to attack with his bow. I was surprised to see that the bow also acted as a sword. However it wasn't quite like Pit's bow that split into two, this one transformed slightly to form a long sword and gave off waves of purple energy.

"I'll try to distract him with my poison, and then you rush in and finish him!"

I searched my inventory to see if there was any item I could find useful and found something I didn't see before.

There was a bag with a smash symbol over it, I moved the on screen cursor over the bag and clicked once. A short message popped up with the image of my assistant talking.

_Wow you are almost level 5 already! By opening this bag you may gain a random skill that your __**second class**__ is able to learn. This bag will disappear once you have reached level 6!_

There were two buttons under this message. One said "Open" and the other "Dismiss", I decided now was the best time to claim this new skill. A sort of slot machine popped up and strange symbols started circulating until one symbol was present. The smash logo in a myriad of colours. I had a feeling I knew what I just unlocked.

**FINAL SMASH SKILL AQUIRED!**

**Full MP required to us it.**

I had an idea that would be fatal for the Level 10 that had now started to regret fighting us.

"Hey Matt, do you by any chance have a MP restoring move, I'm about 20 points short of being full?" I asked, hoping that the HP restorative skill was accompanied by an MP one.

The angel paused for a moment giving Major Marin a chance to jump into a safer position, both players didn't move for about 30 seconds.

"No, sorry mate"

I sighed and decided to fight without using my special skill.

"Wait I think I might have something that could work!" Reece stopped me from entering the battle.

He pulled his fist back, surrounding it in a purple aura. I was kind of worried, thinking that I was about to get a Warlock punch to the face, however I found my MP being filled slightly.

Matt and Major Marin were confused for a moment until Major Marin realised what I was trying to do.

"NO! DON'T TELL ME YOU HAVE THAT SKILL ALREADY!"

He started backing away slowly, edging closer and closer to the blast line. Once my MP restoration had finished everything suddenly got darker and I started to glow.

"Whoa, that's what that guy did when he killed my friends, how are you doing that?" Matt asked.

"It's as skill available to level 10 Smashers and allows them to perform a Final Smash using up all the users MP. That's the reason why this guy hasn't been able to perform any special attacks the whole time. Isn't that right Major Marin?"

All the guy did was growl.

I smirked as I pressed the special attack button to initiate the Final Smash, and watched in awe as my character pointed with his sword, which suddenly grew in size. A selection window came up with the names of two characters, each one a different colour signifying the team they were on. Reece wasn't on the list as he was a member of our group but I quickly moved the highlighter over my opponents name and selected. Major Marin has initially tried to spot dodge, hoping that he would have avoided the attack, but he didn't take into consideration the time taken to select a target so when I teleported behind Major Marin, my sword seemed to literally slice the guy in half.

"I'll get you for this, mark my words. My clan won't stop until you're –"Before the guy could utter the last word, the Final Smash ended and the character disappeared as it flew past the boundary line.

* * *

><p>Reece and Matt hadn't said a word, even as the game went back into free mode. It also seemed that I gained enough XP to level up.<p>

"That was amazing!" Both people said at the same time.

"Well, I was lucky I guess..." was the only response I could manage; I was in slight shock too.

We stayed in the area for about 3 more minutes until Matt suggested we finish the quest.

Throughout our walk, we didn't come across any enemies for quite a while and the ones that did show up were no match for our skills.

"So how do these quest's work then?" Reece asked no one in particular.

I had no idea so decided to remain quiet. Matt however gasped slightly as if he just remembered something.

"I overheard some player's talking back in the Pokémon town before I set off on the quest with my friends. Basically quests are done on different rooms, and the system randomly puts a group in a room with space. Apparently 10 groups of five can be in a room at once. Also I heard that the other quests have been too hard to start first and required some sort of item that you get at the end of this quest."

I took this in, whilst Reece answered straight away.

"Makes sense, but if that's the case, where is Major Marin's partners? I would have thought that he would need companions."

"Yea, he has a point." I added.

"I also heard that this guy, who we now know as Major Marin...ugh, can we call him something else because I'm starting to get sick of that name. Anyway the guy completed the quest first with some other people; rumours are that one of them is a hacker and managed to leave Marin behind so that no one else can finish the quest in this room."

I was surprised at how this guy had so much information at hand, I was about to answer but we ran into another group of Primids.

"Too bad that I'm a Smasher, which was probably the last thing he expected..." I said with a chuckle as the screen went into Smash Mode.

The battle was over in 57 seconds, I figured that was the quickest battle we had fought so far and no one had even taken a hit.

"Where to you think Creed and Eclypse went?" I asked wondering if Reece thought about them at all.

"I was wondering about that too but I have no idea, sor-"Reece tried to reply before Matt, using that tone of voice that we learnt meant he was about to spew information our way, butted in.

"I was talking to this guy who tried a quest before us and failed it. He said that people who get killed by bosses or mini-bosses get put in a temporary room where they can watch us but not communicate with us. When we finish the quest they will receive a small cut of the prize themselves however they will not get any experience that they would have earned before they died. But if you get killed by a regular monster or worse a player, you lose everything and get given the option to try the quest again but for a small price of 100 coins."

"Wow..." I said not knowing whether I was admiring the guy's knowledge or the knowledge itself.

"Yea, I know" It was as if Reece could read my mind.

The journey to the city didn't last much longer and as soon as we stepped within its gates a cinematic started.

The city was literally empty, no one was about, and the three of us being controlled by the game now, started looking down alleys and streets looking for any sign of life. Suddenly out of nowhere a hand takes my avatar and drags him into some nearby bushes. The other two follow, drawing out their primary weapons.

"Wait" The voice whispered, "I am a friend, and please let me explain!"

A sort of mini-movie started playing as the NPC told us his back-story. How his father got drafted for Palutena's Army and also how he was captured by one of Medusa's troops. He then proceeded to reset our HP and MP, directing us straight to the enemies' war camp. We passed lots of troops and eventually arrived at a huge tent, unnoticed thankfully. Once we entered, we saw many Angel Centurions locked up in cages, half of them without their wings and a lot of blood was everywhere.

"This is certainly not a kid's game." I quietly said.

"Be quiet!" Both Reece and Matt said at the same time.

If I could have seen the two, I would have glared directly at their faces.

The boy went to a cage and started talking to a man; who I can only assume was his father; but before anything else could happen a tall ugly being stepped into the tent.

Everything that happened next was a blur, both for my character and for me. I don't know what effects where at hand, but I started feeling dizzy and I could bet Matt and Reece were experiencing the same thing.

The next thing we knew, we were on the floor, outside, surrounded in a ring by the troops of Medusa's army.

A lone figure stepped forward.

"I am Krakow, you think you can come in here, free my pets and expect to leave unnoticed!"

The little boy now unconscious was at Krakow's feet. The monster saw my avatar's eyes look at the boy and he smirked.

"This here boy isn't worthy to be one of my pets. Perhaps I shall feed him to the troops; they could always use the extra protein, plus I hear angel blood is great for a demon's vigour!"

At that, laughter could be heard all around us, as Krakow raised his hand for silence.

"But I am a fair person and will give you chance to fight for your lives and all these angel's lives too!"

The circle of soldiers spread out until there was a big space, enough for a battle.

"Beat me in a battle and you'll walk free, lose and I'll feed your remains to the hellhounds!"

The cinematic ended and the game went back into 3d mode before quickly switching to Smash Mode.

* * *

><p>The leader charged towards us and we barely had time to jump out of the way. My feet got hit by his dash attack and a small chunk of HP drained from my total life points. We quickly went into an attack formation; Matt dealing aerial cover, Reece charging in for the attack and I would come in at certain opportunities and deal as much damage as possible.<p>

"Hey Lucas, if you have a full MP bar, how come you are not glowing?" Matt asked.

I paused to consider this, almost getting hit by Krakow's attacks.

"I'm not sure; perhaps it's a first time thing, but Reece are you not a smasher yourself, did you not get a skill?" I asked remembering that Reece had also levelled up after that fight with the player killer.

"I did, it's called Escard's Deliverance and it can only be activated just before a final smash is executed. So I guess it's a team thing. Oh, look out!" Reece swore under his breath as he got knocked back by Krakow into Matt, leaving me alone to fight the man-beast.

I bravely challenged the boss; but all my hits, did nothing in terms of pushing it back. Instead the boss retaliated with a huge smash of its fist's. The shockwave coming from the ground was enough to knock us all over.

I was slightly surprised when the enemy suddenly jumped into the air and remained suspended above our heads. I remained calm, watching in awe until I realised what he was about to do.

"Hey guys...you know how all bosses have that instant kill move, well I have a feeling that this is one of them, so prepare yourself."

Unlike the famous mercenary leader called Ike I was not prepared for what happened next, Krakow targeted the nearest player, which was unfortunately me and fell directly on top of me, this move didn't kill me but my bar of life was barely visible.

"152 points of damage wow!" Matt exclaimed, "Before you ask I can't heal you, I've already used up most of my MP so that move is currently unavailable, sorry."

"It's alright," I said, making a mental note to tell Matt how to conserve magic. "We'll just have to beat this guy before I get killed."

I was confident that I would defeat that boss and my skills in battle were definitely showing that. As I swung my sword from a forward tilt into a full smash attack the boss's life depleted slowly. Combined with the efforts of Reece and Matt we fatally brought the monster's life down.

Reece fell back, obviously wanting to say something.

"Lucas, do you think we should try that Special Skill Combo now?"

I smiled at the idea and also pulled back, leaving Matt to cover for us.

"Yea I suppose so, but how does it go again?"

"Just tell me before you start to initiate the Final Smash and I'll do mine just before, I think the game knows when a situation like that arises..."

"OK, I'll be sure to tell y– LOOK OUT!"

Krakow not caring for our plans almost squashed Reece, if it wasn't for my pushing him out of the way, he would have died. Unfortunately, I had sacrificed my remaining HP to keep him in the game.

(Line Break)

Whatever happened next felt like a dream; I was in this black place, Eclypse and Creed were trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear them, then there were was a burst of colour and I was blinded for a few seconds. I literally felt sick and would have blacked out if it didn't suddenly stop. I couldn't see my room anymore nor could I hear any sound. I wasn't playing a game anymore, this felt too real and too weird.

Then the feeling passed.

I close my eyes for a few moments, caressing the bridge of my nose. I quickly looked at my surroundings, confirming that I was still in my room. Had I been playing too long? What was the time? I checked my phone, not wanting to come out of full screen and I wasn't surprised to see that it was only 11: 49.

"Hey Lucas are you ok?"

Matt, Eclypse, Creed, Reece and two other people were surrounding me. I looked around; we were back at the hub world. I was very confused, I remembered what Matt had said about player deaths but that seemed a bit extreme.

"Lucas! Are you ok?"

I snapped at the call of my name.

"Yea I'm alright, but what happened?"

Matt again seemed to know the most about our situation.

"It's quite weird actually. You see after you died, the game started acting all funny like, swapping colours and textures. We presume that it was a glitch of some sort. We were also kind of worried for your health as Creed and Eclypse just told us that they experienced the same glitch, which most likely means that you also suffered the same predicament."

Matt paused to take a breath.

"So from what Creed and Eclypse told us about their experiences dying we figured that with the glitch going on, your screen would have most likely been seriously messed up, enough to cause a seizure. You can understand our cause for concern."

I gave a little time to consider this and smirked.

"Well it's a good thing I'm not epileptic then, so yeah, I'm perfectly fine." I didn't want to concern the other people, I hardly knew them anyway.

"Alright, enough with the "We all care attitude" can we start the next quest?" Eclypse had a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Sure, but first let me introduce my –"Matt started but then one of the other players cut in.

"Lucas? Is that you voice I hear? Madrack, you are Lucas right? I never expected to find you so quick!" the girl with dark blue hair exclaimed.

Her lime green eyes shone towards me in a wink. I thought for a second, quite confused about what was happening before realising who she was.

"Wait...is that you C l-"

"It's Kyru here, but yes it's me and I see you also bought the pre-order pack. It's cool that I've found you so quick. Oh I almost forgot, meet Drake. Did you know that his body can be used to produce a sharp projectile?"

"Wow, that's cool. It's nice to meet you Kyru, I'm Lucas."

The Owl didn't reply apart from shaking my virtual hand, I rolled my eyes and started walking towards the counter.

"Well let's get a move on and start a new quest." I knew Eclypse was anxious to get started and I didn't want her to keep waiting.

"But let's do this as a bigger group this time, so the seven of us has a better chance."

Everyone mumbled their agreements and headed towards the front desk.

"So what quest are we doing?"

Matt moved ahead of the group to the counter.

"We are going to do…. the quest known as Sky World Rush 2, for continuity reasons and because there is this item I want to get, I heard it's useful for Angels!"

"Alright, I've got no problem with that."

The others all agreed as the screen faded to black, starting the next quest.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

><p>Amidst the sapphire clouds rolling in the sky, a flaming ball of rock hurtled towards the pillars of a stronghold where various voices could be heard.<p>

"GET OUT!"

Seconds later the castle didn't exist anymore. Troops of Medusa's dark army closed around the wreckage and examined the rubble for any sign of movement.

"Sir, I don't think they survived!" one of the bat like creatures said to its commander.

"Good, however I want two scouts to remain behind just in case, we don't want Medusa thinking I'm incapable of killing a few mortals."

The minion saluted and turned around to a group of Primids lurking at a distance to the main army. The creature known as Zergu walked up to the red Primid who was the leader of the bunch.

"I want you to leave 5 Primids behind to make sure that there really are no survivors. If Medusa even hears about any mistakes not only will my commander be grilled for being terrible at his job, I will get killed so It's in my best...I mean, your best interest to kill any survivors..."

Zergu paused for a few moments, thinking about what he just said. All the others could do was stare at him in shock.

"That's not to say I think he's terrible at his job. No...no...no he's a great commander really," Zergu put up his hands as if he had just made a mistake, "Don't pay any attention to what I just said."

He breathed a sigh of relief and walked away as the red Primid started organising his group. In a few moments the army started leaving, the group of Primids at the back of the army walked oddly staying away from the Greap's and their incredibly sharp blades. Five Primids did stay behind; two giant Primids, two metal Primids and the red commander Primid.

"Alright boys, it looks like we're staying here for another hour, by then the army should have broken through the gates of Palutena's palace and victory will be ours!"

The Primids did an awkward cheer and positioned themselves for a long wait.

"Ugh...the NPC's talk a lot don't they?"

"Shh...they might hear you, and we need to figure out a plan, we can't stay under all this rubble until they leave. You heard the Primid; we would have failed the mission by then."

The first voice grew louder, "Oh come one...you don't think they can hear us, do you?"

"Shut Up!" Three voices said in unison.

"Who said that?" the Primid commander turned around and started walking towards the rubble looking for the source of the noise. "We have you surrounded!"

"Oh...I was wrong then, sorry..."

"Ugh...now what will we do?"

"I guess we can fight our way out?"

"Yea let's do that!"

"OK, 3...2...1..."

"Go!"

"Hey, I was going to say that!"

"Just come on out and fight!"

The Primid confused by all the talking had summoned the other four Primids and they had put themselves in a fighting stance. All of a sudden a small explosion pushed the 5 Primids away, when the smoke cleared a group of players were standing ready for action.

"Get them!" the Primid commander screamed.

As one of the Metal Primids, who didn't get pushed back as far, reached the first player, the screen changed into Smash Mode and the battle begun. The first player, dressed in a rough black and silver jacket, used her claw like hands to strike the first Primid. She jumped over the Primid with her black wings, giving her extra lift, to quickly scope the area. A giant Primid came close to attacking her when the next player jumped in.

"Careful Dominic, we wouldn't want you to get squashed now, would we?" a smartly dressed human appeared from behind the big Primid and knocked it over with a light kick.

"How many times do I have to tell you Prime, stop making little people jokes!" the girl almost screamed causing the nearby avatars to grasp their ears.

This gave an opportunity for another player to come in; however this player was on all fours, sprinting as fast as her legs would allow her.

"Seriously, stop shouting Dominic. My ears hurt and I think I'm starting to get a migraine."

The short white wolf pup with her one red paw paused to look at the giant Primids life and did something no one really expected her to do. The pup consumed the whole Primid and laid a blue box in its place.

"Girl, that is nasty!" a Cornerian male, walked into the battle area, dusting his jacket off.

He grabbed a pair of blasters and quickly took down one of the metal Primids. Using the opportunity to check the opponent's levels he wasn't shocked to see that they were even stronger than the mini-boss from the first mission. That alone was enough to warrant him making a mental note to find more information about the levelling system in this game.

"Guys, these Primids are level 9; even my upgraded blasters can't beat them in one hit. Be careful."

"You don't need to tell me twice!" Dominic said, jumping onto the giant Primid and causing it to topple over with a quick slash attack.

The rest of the battle was over before any of the players noticed.

"So what now?" the Cornerian asked.

"Simple, really...we go to the meeting point and wait for another group." Prime answered quietly

"And where is this point?" Dominic asked.

"How about just over there..." Kitori said, pointing with her paw just ahead of the group.

As she pointed a waypoint lit up for the others to see, one of the smarter functions this game had to offer. Some players had even reported that the game could create temporary waypoints by just describing the location over the microphone. The four looked on ahead to see a dip in the landscape where the road split into two, another group of players were already down there waiting for something to happen.

"Quick, before another group comes and pairs with them!"

Prime started sprinting off, only to be closely followed by the rest of his party. The group didn't come across any other enemies on the short trek down the hill to the crossroads. Prime was the first person to greet the other players.

"Hello, I'm Prime. Are you waiting to team up and finish this map?"

"Yes we are, you took your time!" a girl replied. "I'm Eclypse by the way, now can we skip intros and just get on with this?"

The rest of the party caught up in time to catch Eclypse' remark

"What's her problem?" Kitori asked.

"Don't ask, we are still trying to find out ourselves." Another person replied as the two groups initiated the double party feature, trading basic info with each other.

"So how do we go about and finish this?" Lucas asked, studying his new allies.

"Since the road splits in two, I guess we need two teams to go down each road." Matt answered, "also one road leads to a long ranged weapon. I'm guessing the lower road will and should be used by projectile people, stat bonuses and all that."

The group considered this and eventually split into two. However, since both parties didn't want to part from their original groups, Lucas and the rest of his team took the high path that would lead directly to the main army, whilst the others took the lower path to the weapon.

"Don't you think it would be better if we followed the advice of that player...um, Matt I think his name was?" asked Dominic.

"It was a valid point, however I don't trust them. Maybe their trying to split us up and PK our divided group. Did you not see that one guy, Lucas, he has an orange emblem on his profile?"

The others paused for a moment; none of them had even noticed what Prime pointed out. The group followed the path they were on and encountered three small groups of Primids. These were easily enough taken care of; however the last group dropped an item that surprised everyone.

"What's this?" Kitori asked out loud.

The group gathered around her to see a Level 3 Class Item called Heavens Descent. The item in question looked like a weapon of sorts however there was no blade to call it a sword; neither did it have any sort of holster to say that it was a gun. The description was also bare featuring nothing but three question marks. In fact the only thing they did notice was that the weapon had the Star Fox symbol next to it's name.

"I have no clue," the Cornerian replied.

"Since when did you ever have a clue Fang?" Kitori chuckled, causing the others to scoff slightly.

"Hey it's McShane to you! Anyway it seems only Space class characters can use this item so I'm calling dibs on it." there was no complaint from the others as Fang quickly added the item to his inventory.

A message appeared on Primes chat box making him moan slightly.

"Hey guys, the others are in position and are waiting for us to start out part. I think we need to hurry here."

Whilst the group made their way to the next checkpoint where the long range weapon was situated, Prime quickly sent a message back saying they would start shortly. The group arrived at the weapon that now looked more like a cannon, noticing that there was only room for one player to operate it, the group designated Fang as his class meant that the stat boost's would ensure some damage bonuses. Climbing into the cannon, Fang noticed several things about his view point. For one, he couldn't see his team mates anymore and secondly he was looking through a scope towards the main army nearing Palutena's Palace. The palace was situated on a sloped hill surrounded by rocky boundaries that players would most likely not be able to climb. There was also one path that the army could take leading to the palace which greatly slowed down the group and diminished the number of soldiers able to walk in a row. Fang also spotted the other group of players on a small rise above the army, moving silently with them waiting to strike.

"Prime can you still hear me?"

"Yep!"

"Send a message to the other group and relay the following. Wait until the second blast before attacking and don't move towards the back of the army unless you want to be bombarded with cannon fire."

"Alright, just typing...and sent!"

"Cool, thanks. I'm attacking now!"

The first shot from the cannon sailed through the air and missed the army by meters. However this halted all movement and gave the opportunity for the other group to get ready.

"Firing second shot now!"

The second shot hit the first three rows of the army, wiping them out completely. After this the players charged and started attacking aggressively. With a reload time of five seconds, Fang was able to keep a constant bombardment at the back of the huge army where some rather huge monsters were slowly making their way to the gates. The players surrounding the cannon were taking time to relax when a cut scene stopped them. The air quickly became dark as lightning struck the ground in three places. From those spots, metallic beings formed. They greatly resembled Captain Falcon, however their bodies were silver in colour rather than the bright colours that the F-Zero racers usually wore. Each one pointed at a different player and gained a fighting stance. The scene ended and a new objective appeared.

**ENDLESS FIGHT – HOLD ENEMY BACK UNTILL ARMY IS DEFEATED**

"Do we really have to fight endlessly?" Kitori complained, attempting to attack the Silver Falcon clone.

The swipe attack hit directly across the enemy's chest however it did little to push him back. Looking at the level of the enemy, Kitori noticed that the enemy was called a Bi-Tech Uni. It was also Level 1.

"Just Level 1?" the female choked out slightly frustrated.

"Are you saying we are fighting a single Level 1 enemy and our attacks are doing nothing?" Prime pondered.

Dominic was having a slightly easier job with Bi-Tech Uni then the others and was able to KO the enemy once; however it simply returned to the stage and continued fighting like nothing happened.

"Um...McShane, hurry up and win already! We're not going to last that long against these enemies."

"Huh?" Fang replied not noticing that his friends were fighting. "Oh, you're fighting back there. Well I can report that the army is half defeated. Also my shots are being limited; I only have 5 cannonballs left before I can't help anymore. I'll be using it for one of them giant metal Primids that refuse to go down quickly."

The other group of players were having a slightly easier time dealing with the Primids until a Level 2 Bi-Tech Uni landed in between the group causing them to fall over from the shockwave of the landing. This time the enemy had a life bar and was facing a group of players. Having only one shot left, Fang aimed carefully at Bi-Tech Uni and hoped that the others players would have the sense to move in time.

It was at this time that a huge electrical surge disrupted the whole game and caused the players to blank out.

It was very cold.

The thickness in the atmosphere around the players almost chocked their senses into submission. The feeling of one's very soul merging with a continuing stream of nothingness brought peace to the hearts of the player, if only for a moment. Death's hand was caressing the thread of fate that allowed these players to meet together and fight for one cause. Or in other words, the internet had gone haywire.

"What happened?" I asked, waking up from what felt like an eternal sleep.

Attempting to open my eyes, I saw nothing. That is to say all around me was the void of a powerful invisible force restricting my ability to see properly. I tried speaking, my voice echoing around me. The feeling of fear slowly creeping into my mind, infecting my sense of logic and defying my ability to think straight.

A voice, a sound, a figure.

For some reason I felt as if someone else was there. The presence of a powerful force all around me. My body screamed at me, telling me that we weren't safe and it was time to leave.

"What is happening?" I whispered, wondering why I was able to breathe let alone live in this void.

A flash of light emanated from behind me as I tried to turn around, however before I could fully see the source of light, my sight disappeared again.

"LUCAS!"

"HEY WAKE UP!"

"Geez...this guy's such an annoyance..."

I groaned, the voices of familiar people slowly waking him up.

_Did I just fall asleep?_

Perhaps I was expecting something else to happen, but when I opened my eyes to see the computer screen I couldn't help but feel disappointed.

"Hey...guys, did everyone else experience some weird vision or something?" I asked quietly, making the others gasp in anticipation.

"Seriously...does this always happen to you?" Kitori asked, her somewhat annoyed tone was perfectly replicated by the expression on her avatars face.

It was then that I just realised we were back in the quest hall, most likely because the quest had been finished.

"The others told us about your little episode last time," Eclypse added, "although now that we know you're ok can we move from here...it's a bit crowded?"

Just looking around, it was indeed true that there were tons of players in small groups waiting for one person or another so that they could start their quests. The amount of players in this one area alone caused a slowdown in-game and the area became slightly lag prone. It didn't take long for the group to travel to a quieter location. The new area they found was an Animal Crossing inspired map called Leafy Park. The group found a fountain with a statue of certain mole and decided to sit around it. I became curious why the other group of players that had joined us halfway through the quest was still here. However as soon as I asked the others seemed to either moan, gasp or chuckle.

"Noob," one of the voices said.

I was unsure who it was, but their tone sounded friendly enough that I just rolled my eyes and let it go.

"Haven't you noticed?" Matt said

"You've got all our loot!" Prime finished.

With a quick check of my inventory I confirmed what the others were saying. Under one of the taps in my inventory called Quest Items there was an slot that had the image of a bag, a question mark and piles of gold surrounding it. I clicked on the item and a window popped up asking if I wanted to share the loot now or later. Highlighting the "Now button" I decided to repeat the question I had asked earlier.

"Um...before I share the loot, I asked something before; did anyone else see something weird back there when everything went black?"

This time is was Dominic who answered.

"Are you sure you're not epileptic? All that happened was the game window went black and a flash of random textures appeared on screen before going back to normal. We finished the quest literally seconds later. "

As Dominic explained the group remained silent, all mentally coming up with their own theories about what had happened, then Reece spoke up.

"Well...Creed has been quite silent since you apparently woke up."

The system interpreted Reece's words and moved the avatars of everyone in the group to face Creed, he was thinking to himself, not paying attention to what was happening.

"I'm right next to him," Eclypse spoke out, "He's perfectly fine..."

"Actually...about that..." Creed said, his sudden low voice caused everyone to jump slightly. " I think I saw something too. There was this voice of sorts, very robotic and I was in a field of blue lights zipping about in a futuristic sense. The voice said that the chosen people are not all here yet. It also said something about an offering to something called HASEM ATARND. At least that's what I think it said. I'm not sure; maybe I just blanked out for a moment and imagined it?"

Creed chuckled a bit, seemingly trying to reassure himself that he imagined it.

"Seriously, that is enough," Kitori burst out. "All this supernatural, glitch, whatever nonsense is really getting on my nerves!"

Prime cut in to stop anything from developing further.

"Maybe Kitori is right. Just share the loot so we can separate, it's starting to get late where I am so I want to call it quits for today."

I sighed, quickly pressing the button to share the loot. A sound alerted the players that new items had dropped into their inventories. Also a few of the people around me had just gained enough experience to level up. After checking my own inventory I saw a new item called the Scope Glasses. It's item description stated it allowed a user to see further than before.

"Scope Glasses...I guess that's somewhat useful." I murmured aloud.

I quickly double tapped the screen of my phone, checking the time. Although it was early for the average MMO player I decided that it was late enough for me and that I needed the sleep, especially if I wanted to get a full day's worth of questing done tomorrow. Letting the others talk about their new items and unlocked abilities, I typed a message to all the nearby players, making sure to send friend request's so that I could find them again. I then quickly shut off the game, rushing through all the things I needed to do before I slept. Even before my head hit the pillow I knew that I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about the world of smash. It was strange indeed, I knew that I already had a strange attraction for the game, was it addiction? I couldn't say, but I would have to venture back into the online world of Smash if I wanted answers.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

><p>Deep in the world that the human players had started roaming lay a castle. Its design was that of an ancient fortress, available only to those players that were of a significant level. The surroundings of the castle were open, a huge lava lake encircling the land which the fortress stood on. The only means of access to the fortress was via a draw bridge, guarded by a beast whose level was unknown to all apart from the designer. The castle itself was void of all life, as quiet as one would expect this lonely place to be. However it was under the fortress that a level of prison cells containing many beings laid, a place where a green clad swordsman was being interrogated.<p>

"For the last time...where did you hide it?" a Demonic like creature asked, hitting the swordsman with the hilt of a black sword against his head.

The blonde man spat against the floor, pulling the strength together for one last act of defiance; a simple grin. The creature known for his exaggerated lack of temperance beat the swordsman until he couldn't hear the man's breath over his own.

"It seems I've killed you in my anger human," he said to the now dead corpse "such a pity, you were a fun toy whilst alive."

With nothing left to do the being started making his way out of the prison cell, making his way through various halls and staircases until he had reached a door that looked very out of place. The door itself was dull silver, almost grey in colour. A Panel next to it had various buttons and dials on it, but there was only one button the demon needed to press. As he pressed a button separated from the rest a tone sounded before he spoke.

"Identification number LG1LZ" he said, making sure to pronounce each individual letter as the door made various sounds, analysing the voice of the speaker.

"Identification accepted" it said, opening for the demonic being.

Through the door was another hall, however instead of the standard interior of a fortress in the middle age's this new hall was completely white and sterile. Similar in nature to a hospital, this new area was full of men and women in white clothing, moving about the place, not paying much attention to the demon. In fact no one paid notice to him as he made his way to the direct centre of the complex where an array of monitors where set about. Upon entering the room a voice spoke out to the demon.

"I hope you have good news this time," the voice was not natural, it sounded synthetic, used only as a means to mask the identity of the speaker.

The demon hesitated before replying.

"Subject number 5 failed to reveal anything, and in my anger I may have...well that's to say I kind of...killed him a bit..."

The demon was expecting some sort of backlash but none came, the vague shadow of a man sitting in a black chair was thinking. The silence irritated the demon would shuffled about in place for several minutes until the man spoke again.

"We still have the clones, interrogate number 3 and 5, and make sure not to kill them before they reveal anything. Losing one of the originals is of no matter; we still have the S.O.D.N.A to replicate our little hero."

The demon smiled in delight, he wasn't afraid of the man in front of him, but more so the power that the man could instantly summon. Thinking of punishment he could bestow on the hero replica pleased the demon, enough to overcome his hatred for the man in front of him.

"And what of the 51?" the demon asked.

"They have not all come online yet and some have not even logged on since launch, it's rather disappointing. We already have plans in motion for them but when we do send them over I want you alone to gather their human will, we need these for our future plans. If you fail to collect the tributes I would hope that they kill you before I do, remember we are the ones that control your people."

The demon stepped back in slight shock, he wanted to retort with a remark about his flawless abilities but thought better of it, if the man in the chair had physically been in the room the demon wouldn't have hesitated in tearing him to shreds.

"As you wish...Lord" he said before leaving the room.

* * *

><p>I woke up early the next day, since I was on a break from school I had no reason to leave my apartment. However that didn't stop me from practically skipping to the shower and freshening up, grabbing a slice of toast and diving towards my PC. Even before I had woken my computer up from its sleep state an update appeared on the screen saying that glitches and various bugs would be fixed. Whilst allowing the update to run I finished up all the necessary preparations for the day, making sure that no one would disturb me.<p>

A fanfare sounded after the update finished and auto launched the game. Jumping into my seat I was quickly greeted by my assistant and taken back to the online world of Smash. Looking at the screen a new addition to the interface appeared. A counter with the words Smasher Tracker had the number 42/51. In less than five minutes that number had risen to 47 and remained that way for a while. Deciding to ignore it for now, I found out that none of people I had added as friends last night were online. I sighed but saw the bright side of it, which meant I could look around the world impeded. Spawning in a city called Kaleido, the amount of players here almost amounted to 1000. There were many things happening at once, rare items were being auctioned off to high bidders whilst a few players were offering their skills as hired muscle or informants. The system allowed for easy transference of money, therefore it was possible to have many sorts of jobs in this virtual world.

"Hey you...with the smash logo, why not try this ancient Franklin badge, it's only 2000 coins, a bargain for sure!" A player by the name of Spyre105 called. "It's designed to last for 800 uses after being equipped and can only be found from a Shiny Ultimate Chimera."

The player was finely dressed, almost as if he came directly from another game. The distinction between the red and black that the player was wearing was quite eye catching, especially if you were looking close up. I contemplated buying the item as it seemed to be a good investment by accepted a trade request from the player and dropping 2000 coins in. I noticed that after this purchase I would only have 100 or so coins left, it seemed that the two quest's I had done gave me quite a bit of money, although dying might have cut away some of that.

"Ok, just press the accept button an-"

"HEY YOU!"

Although we could vaguely see the source of the noise our avatars turned to face a male player wearing what looked like an incomplete adventurer set. The anger is his dark green eyes matched the voice of the player behind the avatar.

"YOU LOUSY CHEAT! THAT BADGE WAS FAKE!"

"Hey...Phantom was it? Look...I just found it and...I...um..." before another word could be said, Spyre105 closed the trade window and casted a transportation spell known only to those of the Demon Lord class.

"Ugh...damn it! I scared him off..." Phantom mumbled before noticing me standing there in complete shock, "Oh...did he dupe you too?"

I paused for a second before explaining how I had intended to purchase the item before Phantom ran in screaming his head off. It has caused a few players to turn around and look at the scene, but before long everything went back to normal.

"I suppose I deserved it, not trusting my initial instincts. The item was a fake, crafted using Demon Lord magic to appear as if it was the real thing. I was going to use my money and finish off my equipment set but then he called me over. Oh...sorry, I didn't introduce myself; I'm Phantom an Archer and Smasher."

"Well I'm Madrack, but most people call me Lucas anyway. I'm a Knight and Smasher. Which brings me to ask, have you seen that Smasher counter thing on the screen, weird isn't it?" I asked, although my mind was more focused on the con artist and the ability to sell fake items so easily.

"Huh, oh right! I hadn't noticed it till now, it's at 50/51 though, and do you suppose something will happen if all 51 appear at one time?"

"Hmm, maybe an event of some sort. Smashers seem to be a rare breed of player so perhaps it will be a hunt for us..." I said jokingly, secretly hoping the game wouldn't take me seriously.

Phantom laughed in response and looked around, the area they were in was a market like area, perfect for selling your items.

"I was thinking of going to the arena and entering a tournament." Phantom said after a while.

"Is that like the old games then?" Lucas enquired.

"Exactly, using popular tournament rule sets, people enter and fight for a set amount of coins. The first tournament is going to start in half an hour and the grand prize is 25,000 coins!"

I grinned widely when I heard that, it sounded like a great idea. We made our way out of the market area and after 20 minutes of walking and backtracking found our way to a rather large stadium. It was immensely huge, having 9 floating platforms the stadium was already starting to fill with spectators who were busy placing bets on those who had already registered.

"Um...is there an entry fee?" I asked suddenly worried that I wouldn't have enough money.

"I don't think so, at least not for the very first tournament. But my sources are not completely reliable," Phantom's avatar pointed up ahead, "Look, I see the registration desk."

At the counter was a toad figure, upon speaking with him a simple interface opened up and allowed users to enter. There were already 129 people who had already entered the tournament with just over 2 minutes left of registration time. Luckily there was no fee just as Phantom had said so the two of us were in seconds before the deadline. Before anything else could be said the two of us were teleported away as the first official tournament started.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

><p>To say that the atmosphere was hyped would be an understatement.<p>

The stadium in the capital of the Smash World US server was designed to seat at least one hundred thousand virtual players. Today it was packed to the brim with players from every server, news of this tournament had reached almost every player that was online and it certainly showed if you had access to the attendance list. It would be later found out by the participating players that the events of the tournament were being streamed in taverns around the game and even being streamed on popular video sites simultaneously. It really was an event for the ages. The players who were supposed to be participating were all standing on a singular platform, in the middle of the stadium. The roar of the crowd, generated by an algorithm deciding how many players there were was deafening. However all went quiet when a familiar hand magically appeared in a very dramatic fashion. In the palm of the hand was a man, wearing golden armour, plated in a purple metal suit. The man exuberated confidence in his pose and the way he stood to address everyone that was watching.

"Greetings players!" the voice spoke, it was clearly a man and not some teenager speaking.

"My name is Tomohito Matsuda and I am the creator of Super Smash Universe. I welcome you to the very first tournament of a new era of Smash Bros."

The crowd was ecstatic, emulating the eagerness of the players the system could hear through their microphones.

"Currently there are 2.3 Million people around the world watching this very stream, awaiting the battle to glory that is about to commence. But before we begin I would like to wish every entrant good luck and please understand, while we can't all be winners, every player who takes part in this tournament today will be remembered for all of Super Smash Universe history!"

To those that had a good view of the man speaking the man's next actions were odd yet amazing at the same time. Tomohito did a weird motion with his hand and his mouth seemed to move at the same time before he seemed to disappear in a sparkle of light. As I'd watched the scene I could almost swear his movement seemed too realistic, more so than the average character model. Although I was unsure if he teleported away or something else happened, a large air balloon came into view above the stage. On both sides of the balloon there was a screen where two people were waiting to talk.

"Hello fellow Smashers! My name is Michael Barn and this is my co-host Claudia Winterbourne. We are here to explain just exactly what is going to happen today with this tournament."

As they said this, their faces on the big screen changed to a field of white with names and levels for all the players who had entered the tournament. I was surprised to see that there were no players above 20, it must have meant that the later missions were much harder than I thought, something to keep in mind for later.

We have one hundred and sixty contestants today in this grand tournament. The rules will be quite simple; 3 stock matches, no items and the stage of choice will be the new variation of battlefield that the contestants are standing on," said Claudia, "Also, if you lose one match..."

"That's it for you!" finished Michael "You'll be out of the tournament."

"Only the winner will get a prize!" They both said together.

"How exciting, isn't it?" Claudia asked.

"Yes, very much so!" Michael said in agreement.

Some music started playing, it was a new rendition of Super Smash Bros Brawl's tournament song. It certainly hyped all the players as everyone was itching for the action to start.

"Players will be given a random number between one and 73," Michael said, "Once every player receives a number you'll notice that two players will both have the same number."

"These players will fight it out in the battlefields here today," Claudia said, "this process will continue until there are only 5 players left. One player will be chosen at random to enter the final match automatically whilst the rest will battle it out for that privilege."

"Players are you ready!"

Some of the players put their fists into the air whilst others raised their weapons. I decided to draw my sword and point it upwards, thinking it looked cool enough. As we did this a huge number generator appeared on screen giving us our numbers. I saw that I had been given the number 39 whilst Phantom was given 12. The generator gave all opponents numbers within seconds and the board was ready for the nine matches to begin.

On the first stage there stood two people, the first a female Hylian by the name of Jasmine. She wore a white tunic that sparkled very faintly, it had meant that the player had started the chain of side quests needed to wield a Master Sword. On her back was an early version of the Goddess Sword from the game Skyward Sword. She turned around and waved to crowds around her. The second person was a human by the name of DJ. He looked out of place in this game world full of warriors and mages. Dressed in a black jacket with matching trousers, the male was assuring himself that he would make a show of his weapon abilities in such a way that would greatly amaze the spectators.

The second stage contained a human smasher called Muto. The player quickly showed off his powers by changing into his aqua state, fist pumping the air in an attempt to make himself look cool. His opponent was completely covered by a green robe, hiding his face from the virtual cameras. His name however still appeared over his head switching between Rockernam502 and Isaac. The tall and slender model of the Mage was completely focused on his opponent who he recognised also had the same ability he had, that of the smasher.

Whilst the other seven platforms contained competitors eager to start fighting, the others were waiting in a room where they could watch all nine matches simultaneously.

"This is going to be epic!" I said, allowing my avatar to hop from one foot to the other in excitement.

"Yeah, can't wait to finally start fighting." Phantom replied, his avatar chewing on something that looked like meat.

"Um...what is that?" I asked.

"Oh, it's rare steak. It enhances your strength by two points for about an hour, pretty useful stuff."

"Cool! But where did you get it?"

"Ahh...monster drops from some place in the Zelda looking place."

"I see...oh look, it's about to start!"

The two paid attention to the screen again as a countdown appeared in the middle.

All the competitors currently on stage instantly changed into the usual Smash Mode and got into a battle ready stance.

* * *

><p>Out of all the 18 people who were currently fighting, DJ was the first person to land a hit. Using his laser like cannon, the short tanned boy landed a 12% hit on the Hylian causing her to stumble and curse slightly. She responded with a barrage of arrow and boomerang attacks, using her sword only as a defensive tool when DJ got closer. Jasmine threw the gale boomerang at DJ who dodged the attack, however he knew that is would come back as it shared the same features from Brawl, thinking on the go, DJ pulled out a grenade and dropped it where he stood, jumping over the boomerang as it brought he grenade right were jasmine stood. The blast almost caused the Hylian to lose a stock, however luck and skill kept her alive.<p>

Muto and Isaac were definitely not holding back, both on their last remaining stock with over 100% damage each. Currently in a fire state, Muto attempted to punch Isaac in the face, but the mage jumped backwards using his magic to create a Wave barrier between the two. Both players behind the avatars were silent, in the zone to win the match.

Already four of the nine matches had been completed and numbers 10, 11, 12 and 13 had been teleported to stage already about to commence battle.

Phantom had been pitted against a Wolf Laguz by the name of Shura. Currently in animal for, the girl was an intimidating presence for all those who were watching her, whilst in this form the female druid would have enhanced strength and the ability to use the skill Savage every once in a while. This particular skill deals three times the damage a normal attack would and has a random chance of temporarily weakening the opponent.

On another platform a male dressed in overalls that greatly resembled Luigi model wise was a Pyro-enhanced human called Shadow. He wore mostly black clothing, wearing gloves that were white, but if you looked hard enough, you would see they were glowing with a red aura. The character had a permanent frown on his face as if he was bored to be here. His opponent was an angelic humanoid wearing cat ears. She was wielding a rather holy looking sword called Demon-Blight. With the name Tora, she wore modern attire as well having light grey wings. A dagger was attached to a belt on her hip, however it was unusable as an item and was only there for aesthetics.

Thanks to the immense severs located in North America, Europe and Asia connected by the most advanced net framework money can buy, the connection between players was flawless.

Whilst new competitors were being teleported to the stage, DJ and Jasmine were still fighting. Both on their last stocks, DJ was in the lead by around 50%. Jasmine had been having trouble with her recoveries as she was not moving vertically enough. She kept a mental note to upgrade her Spin Attack after the tournament.

DJ pulled a grenade and chucked it at the Hylian that had just grabbed the ledge; he also pulled another one, keeping hold of it for a few second. Jasmine saw this and rolled forward as DJ threw the grenade. She instantly blocked the attack with her shield causing that clash sound to be heard; she then let loose a rapid set of strikes with her sword, closing the gap in damage percentage.

As this was happening, the match between Muto and Isaac ended with almost both competitors being KO'd at the same time. It was to Muto's advantage that he used his flame abilities to prevent his death by a mere millisecond.

Shadow and Toro were at it like two gladiators in ancient times. Each stage had its own stream available from the Master Steam set up by the game. This current match had the highest amount of viewers and for a very specific reason.

Neither opponent had been touched yet.

Both players were executing moves with such precision a surgeon would be jealous, however when a move seemed to be a certain hit, the other player performed a Perfect Shield on the move, negating any damage and keeping the shield size at maximum. This carried on for over 4 minutes; before a timer warned both players that there was only one minute remaining before Sudden Death occurred. What was unknown to the players at the time was that the Bob-Bombs being used at the time were instant killing items and were not grabble.

Because of this Toro lost first, but no one saw her as a lesser skilled player and rather as the unfortunate victim of the games mechanics.

Phantom was not having the best of luck against the Laguz player. He was down by a stock and on the verge of losing. The effects of the Rare Steak were countered by the female's enhanced strength and the Savage skill, which had already cost him twice already.

I was watching this particular match from the waiting room, where all the other players were. I noticed that Phantom was relying heavily on his Smash Attacks and his movement was not very fluid compared to the average player. He was relying on his ranged attacks which Shura was able to dodge with ease, this angered Phantom and caused him to make some very silly mistakes. In an attempt to quickly knock Shura away, Phantom used his Bomb Arrow attack to blast Shura off stage. He ran after her jumping in the air to attempt a Meteor Smash on the Laguz only for her to perform a Death Choke killing both players in the suicidal move, however with the extra stock Shura was declared the winner of the match.

* * *

><p>Well, I've started compiling all the characters I have so far and by the looks of it I might have over 50 Smashers. Thanks for reading so far and I hope you enjoy reading more in the future.<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

><p>"Sir, Stream 1 at 98%."<p>

The voice came from a man working at a station, in a control room in Tokyo. The room in question was home to one of the servers of the newly released Super Smash Bros: Online Edition. It was during the first tournament that work had begun to pile up for the technicians there, a plethora of bugs that passed through testing had shown up and needed to be sorted as quick as possible. Also multiple accounts of hacking had been reported before the tournament and the GM's were quickly trying to locate the players and ban their IP addresses, using an advanced monitoring system that worked with ISP's to help catch the same user successfully.

The room was split into three sections. The first area held a huge monitor that took up most of the north wall, there were various computers and machines underneath that acted as a storage mainframe for the taskforce and investigation teams. The second part of the room was made up of three rows of computer workstations. Each row seated 20 highly qualified and trained employees, who worked on the complications behind the glamorous and simple look of the online world.

Half of the people in the room were watching the ongoing tournament matches in case a hacker or problem suddenly occurred. One of these people was Tomohito Matsuda. As one of the initial developers of the project, he was selected by a panel of Neural-Net engineers to start development on the next big development in gaming technology. As a condition for his promotion, he was also assigned to the Quantum Network Task Force, the newly created group assigned with keeping order in the network that the online game ran on.

The last section of the room was slightly elevated. A single, shorter workstation was there, one that housed five people. Behind that, a lone man stood, observing everything that was going on. The left most side of the short workstation was the place where the director of operations was stationed. His name was Chiba Momiji, a scientist that was also part of the Neural Network Committee.

"Sir, servers are at half capacity." He spoke to the man behind him.

The man that was standing was holding a tablet like device with which he used to oversee the Quantum Network Task Force. He didn't reply to the announcement made by his subordinate and continued to tap away at an application on the device. The program was specially made by the chief to work with the quantum network and modify its performance capabilities. The chief's name wasn't known by the majority of the Task Force, however Chiba knew Hideyoshi Ichiro on a personal level but rarely ever called him by his name rather being more respectful in front of the others.

Hideyoshi was the sort of person who grew with his whole life planned for him. He was born into a respectable and traditional family that wanted him to take over the family business when the time came for it. However during his years in High School, Hideyoshi was introduced to a person by one of his friends who showed him that there was more to life than what his family wanted of him. This turn of events sparked life into the teenager for the first time and prompted him into furthering his studies. Quickly picking up quantum mechanics, Hideyoshi became an exceptional student and was formally invited into the University of Tokyo after a thesis of his made its way into a professor's hand.

His family were initially hesitant at the speed Hideyoshi was advancing, however they soon supported his success when the young man started bringing more attention to the family business, even creating ties that were never thought to be possible.

Almost two years into his time at the University of Tokyo, Hideyoshi along with a student called Yuji Iesada, created what was soon to become the Quantum Network. Using protocols that mimic neural activity in the brain, the Quantum Network was able to act with zero latency conditions for movement recognition and input controls. This development also sparked the idea of the Neural-Net Device, an instrument used for precise connectivity from the brain to the Quantum Network. Yuji Iesada was put in charge of the project and development had been steadily increasing until the release of Super Smash Bros: Online Edition, where the first fully functional prototype was complete and had passed all precautionary testing.

"Sir, the quantum network is in optimal condition."

There are many ways to speak of development for video games, such as engine choice and physics algorithms used. However with this particular project, everything was different. Having been built on the Quantum Network itself, the game relied on true logic to correctly differentiate between cause and reaction. It used a process known as the Synapse Relocation System or the SR System to link objects in the way the players would unconsciously link ideas and thoughts. With communication between the different 'nodes' or system files, the SR system was able to react faster than any previously made gaming engine in the world. It was also made to accommodate billions of micro dynamic image calculations every second; being able to produce visuals that were immersive to look into, if the output was a high enough quality screen. In fact the only thing that could hold it back was the equipment that consumers used to view the game, whether their computers were not powerful enough or their internet couldn't handle such speeds. This was the primary reason why the game's servers occasionally lagged, a factor that would be removed in the future.

Because at its current stage, Super Smash Bros: Online Edition was just at phase one.

The plan was to initially wait until the Neural-Net Device was finished and ready for consumer use. Then a new autonomous AI called the immersion system would be installed into the devices ready to be used with the game. As the device was similar in concept to a past virtual reality system, the publishers failed device, development got extended to ensure it was perfected.

The immersion system was a living resident of the Quantum Network, it acted as a portion of the SR System which monitored player inputs, sound and if given, visual input. Based on these, it is able to adjust how the SR System reacts to the player, providing a more reasonable environment to attract the player. The SR System was developed by another subordinate of Hideyoshi who was on watch next to Chiba.

The developer of the immersion system was a free thinker called Ina Tanigawa. She had always been a big gaming fan and loved to plough through RPG style games. However her attention to detail often left her disappointed as she was never fully immersed into the setting of the games she played. Some of them were really close, but she often felt let down by certain aspects such as textures that suddenly flickered or characters that acted non-human like. This would lead her to start working on the system that would land her a job on the team she was currently with.

"Sir, the player immersion system is at maximum output." She said, sending a message to the central computer so that several backup machines could start converting into immersion system links.

To her right, another woman was seated, going through a backlog of text on her screen. This woman was placed in charge of security at the facility they were in and in the Quantum Network. Being a capable developer herself, Satu Takara produced the S.O.D.N.A system or the Structured Open Dual Nerve Amplifier. This was a program that was critical to the use of the Neural-Net Device and without it, development would have ceased years ago. Because of its nature, it needed to run on the Quantum Network as the calculations required needed to be exact and simultaneous to the other tasks it performed whilst active.

The S.O.D.N.A system was capable of reading the internal nerve fluctuations in a targets cellular brain mass, meaning if used with the Neural-Net Device and connected to a human being, it could create a virtual clone of a person with its own thought processes and memories. However, Satu was in a bad mood. Virtualisations of the targets would degrade faster than expected and would succumb to madness. It was only recently that they were able to stabilise this effect with virtual suspension, a technique that replicated the effects of a coma to its targets. Also the task force had been using the system for cloning of targets she didn't approve of, away from her attention. For some reason they thought it was best that she wasn't as involved because her sincere nature would get in the way of her judgement. In all the test subjects not one had shown a change in their mental or physical health, in fact all patients had woken up feeling more refreshed than usual.

She looked to Ina on her left and smiled at her ability to work so hard. The two had been friends since their days in Middle School and were inseparable, to think they would be working with each other was truly one of the universes great wonders. The two had made accounts on the game they were helping to monitor, often playing it during breaks and in their own time. As they developed core mechanics for the system rather than game content, they could still find enjoyment out of something they were proud to call their own creation.

Satu's online avatar was simply called Hei, mostly because she always feigned that she didn't hear when someone was speaking to her. The female Hylian was heavily customised with Hazel-Gold eyes and fire red hair that seemed to glow in the dark. In contrast to those colours, her skin was extremely pale. The combination produced an avatar that could be considered quite beautiful for certain people, almost to the extreme where a player once thought Hei was an NPC of the Zelda goddess Din. Ina on the other hand was always cloaked and never revealed her characters face around her. She even found a way to mask her name. When asked about it, she would simply say it's for security reasons.

"Sir, we've lost a further 3 OS targets in the last 15 minutes." Satu Takara had announced, reading a message that just appeared on her screen.

The OS' she had been talking about where redirection servers that appeared to be hosting the Smash Bros game, however due to the nature of this game and it's specific requirements the world wasn't ready to know what technology was being used to support this project. There were 15 "fake" servers in total. Although 3 had been taken down, they were ones with weak security used to attract hackers and break attention away from the ones used to direct the majority of players. Satu sighed, knowing she would see the same servers taken down multiple times throughout the day.

The last two people sitting at the table of five had recently been playing the game since launch, they had already beaten a few quests and partied with random players. The two were in charge of the information network between players, making sure sensitive or dangerously misleading information couldn't be spread by players. They were also on watch for the 51 people who had signed up for the Smasher bonus. As at that moment, there were 50 of them online, which is the highest it had been since launch. The two had planned the major tournament in the hopes of attracting all Smasher players quickly, rather than monitoring and keeping track of the players all the time until they got lucky.

However everything didn't go completely as planned.

There always has to be one. Having not moved since the game launch, Rikako and Oharu Suzuki were stressed, with bags starting to form under their eyes. Several polystyrene cups were on the floor, around their monitors, stains from coffee evident on them. Something happened and a notification pooped up, it almost went unnoticed by the two, but it caused all feelings of drowsiness to disappear instantly.

"Sir, we have all targets online."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

><p>"Welcome to Japan!"<p>

Time seemed to have passed faster than lightening as the 42 guest's of Nintendo were cold and jet lagged.

Seated in a small red and white coach, the age range of the selected players were all over 18, this had helped greatly when it came to arranging visas and getting parental permission. Of the 51 that were initially selected; 5 were too young, 3 were denied access by their parents and the last was deemed physically inept for the requirements of the visit.

Unbeknownst to the visitors even 10 would have sufficed.

"I will be your guide today, my name is Joo Dee." The woman spoke with perfect English.

"Je serai votre guide aujourd'hui, mon nom est Joo Dee," a man spoke for those who were not able to understand the woman.

The tired smiles from the players, was the only thing the guide received. Luckily most of us could understand English or French. One of two hadn't spoken since we arrived and the rest seemed to get on fine, nodding whenever they were asked if they could understand what was said to them.

"Where have I heard that name before?" I asked myself, going through the names of Asian people I knew from fiction.

It was obvious that the woman wasn't Japanese but I couldn't really say it mattered. The group was currently on the road, heading towards one of the old research centres that Nintendo used for Integrated Research & Development.

From the brief introduction we were given we found out that the building had been taken over by Hideyoshi Ichiro years ago when he proposed the use of the Neural-Net Device for their next home console. However the idea was still in its infantile stages at the time, therefore with funding from the Quantum Network Task Force, a contract was pursued to use the IP: Super Smash Bros with the integration of the systems and devices that Hideyoshi was bringing to the table.

"The bus ride will take an hour and half, so I suggest you take the time to relax or view the wonderful sites along the way. I'll be pointing them out for your benefit, we at Nintendo hope your stay is enjoyable for all of you."

The second man repeated the sentence in French, whilst half of the players were already in a dream like state.

"Light weight noobs..." the boy next to me scoffed.

Phantom was just as I had expected him to look like in real life. In fact, the similarities between his in game avatar and real form were uncanny to say the least.

"It's like been several hours...I thought these were MMO players?" he said, looking out of the window he was sitting next to.

Before I could respond, a quiet voice cut him off.

"Your vocabulary is as bad as whatever." The voice came from the boy who was seated opposite to me, quite thin for a male, having dark shadows under his large dull black eyes.

"Excuse me?" Phantom said, leaning forward to look at the boy properly. "Who are you even?"

"My Name is unnecessary to you. Like philosophy or art. It has no survival value. Rather it is one of those things that give value to survival you see..."

"What?" Phantom and I then said simultaneously.

"He's just messing with you! His name is Sterling and he usually talks like that." A tall girl spoke, her eyes closed and rested against the window. Her earphones, connected to an MP3 player were quietly playing a playlist of rock music.

"I'm Saaba by the way, can't you just be excited we're going to Nintendo of Japan. I mean it's not like people just waltz in there every day."

"Wear a smile and have friends, wear a scowl and have wrinkles." Sterling said, looking at Phantom with a blank expression that made him slightly nervous.

"Yea...um sure, oh and Saaba. What were you listening to earlier when you were smirking during the guide's introduction?"

"Um...oh! Pain by Three Days Grace. Have you heard of them?" Saaba said, opening her eyes to show her light brown irises.

The conversation carried on for quite some time, I wasn't interested by the conversation and instead focused on the sights we were passing. Although it was possible to view the sights of Japan through software that gave you free movement, nothing really compared to the real thing. The sights were relaxing, the warmth comforting and the next thing I knew, I was asleep reliving the events of the first Smash Bros MMO tournament.

* * *

><p>I ended up watching a particular match from the waiting room, where all the other players were. From basic observation it was clear that Phantom was relying heavily on his Smash Attacks, his movement was not very fluid compared to the average player. He was relying on his ranged attacks which Shura was able to dodge with ease. This in turn angered Phantom and caused him to make some very silly mistakes. In an attempt to quickly knock Shura away, Phantom used his Bomb Arrow attack to blast Shura off stage. He ran after her, jumping in the air so that he could attempt a Meteor Smash on the Laguz only for her to perform a Death Choke, killing both players in the suicidal move, however with the extra stock Shura was declared the winner of the match.<p>

Slightly disappointed that my new friend lost his match, I chuckled ever so slightly, the excitement of competing was too much to keep me down. After a few moments I checked my friends list, noticing that most of my friends had come online. As I attempted to type a message to Reece, several things happened at once.

A few of the contestants who had signed for the tournament had logged out, effectively disqualifying them. This meant that I was due to fight after 9 more battles.

A team of skilled players, all under the Clan name **Hooded Reapers** had started their matches, ending them in the shortest amount of time possible. I was due to play next.

A message appeared on the screen for all Smashers, force teleporting us to a location that we didn't recognise. I had just been teleported to the stage when it happened, disappearing in front of his opponent.

"What the hell!" someone shouted, attempting to teleport back only to find the command disabled temporarily.

Looking around I could see that every player here was a Smasher. In fact all 51 players who had all chosen to be Smashers, in one way or another, were in this void like room where everything from the floor to the ceiling was black. The floor itself seemed to be made of marble, one huge stone that reflected the images of the players. The only bit of colour was from the players themselves. We stood there for a few moments before realising that there were two huge pillars in the room, almost perfectly blending with the void.

"Please forgive the abrupt teleportation. Your characters will be returned as soon as we are finished speaking." The voice came from a female avatar with no visible name.

The voice was clearly Japanese, but spoke a better English than most people. I wondered for a moment if everyone could even understand her when someone spoke up.

"Who do you think you are?" One of the players asked, others nearby stared murmuring their agreement.

"My name is of no concern, however I am one of the GM's of this game. For security purposes, I've created this location, reminiscent of Subspace from the US version of Super Mario Bros 2."

She appeared, having stood next to the Pillar, blending in with it. She then walked towards the players, her cloak hiding almost every feature of the avatar apart from the fact she was human. As I watched her approach I marvelled at how well detailed the animation was, her cloak moving around her body as if it were real.

"The following meeting is extremely confidential and I ask that any of you that are under 18 please step to the right now."

At first there was hesitance in the group, and then several players moved to the spot where the hooded woman was pointing.

"I'm afraid I'll have to send you back. As compensation for bringing you here unexpectedly I have left a gift in your inventories."

It was then that she did the strangest thing the players had seen.

"Shisutemu komando" she said, holding her right hand up.

The eight blue lines appeared around her, from her head to her waist, many different Japanese symbols appearing on each line. She rapidly pressed certain words, which lighted up and brought different lines as they changed in colour, most likely in a menu style fashion. With a final button press, the players that were standing on the right had been teleported simultaneously.

"What was that….?" I recognised the voice as Creed's.

"Shi-su-temu ko-man-do, it is the Japanese equivalent to saying System Command. As you may expect I'm not playing this game from a normal terminal like yourselves. I'm using a device that allows for greater communication with the game."

We were slightly awed at this.

"As you all were lucky enough to purchase the promotion that was offered on our website, you have been automatically qualified to a private tour of the games development facility and will be given a chance to use our new hardware before we present it to the public."

Some of the younger players seemed to have stopped breathing and before he knew it 40 or so players were shouting random questions before the GM raised her hand to quieten everyone.

"A detailed email will be sent to the addresses used to register your accounts explaining everything you need to go on the trip and the forms that need to be signed. There is one condition that I must ask you to follow however, you must not tell another person outside of this room unless absolutely necessary. If the information spreads to the media then we will be forced to deny any existence of this offer and the opportunity will be lost forever."

Her words hit us like a slap in the face.

"To keep something secret is like covering it, or putting it in a container, so that other people cannot see it," a small voice had said, causing some of the players to "what?" in confusion.

"Why all the hush hush?" Another player clarified.

"Simple really," the woman started "This new technology is something our competitors are desperately looking to acquire before we announce it. However we still need beta testers who have a history with Nintendo and are less likely to be a spy or spread word about our hardware."

She paused, her head moving backwards as if someone was whispering into her ear.

"That's where the Smasher program comes in. Someone who is willing to pay extra for a well known franchise is less likely to be a spy. We have also been monitoring your conversations and playing patterns, which mostly follow the trends of gamers."

"Isn't that illegal?" I voiced out.

"Ahh, Lucas is it?" the woman replied "Yes, I guess it can be considered illegal in some countries, however if we were to send you to Japan for free, we had to be sure. Also we have sorted the...problems you've come into whilst playing the game."

I wasn't sure what to say, he was still considering the benefits of going to Japan against reporting these people and not seeing the development of his favourite game and this new technology.

"Are you in the game?" I again recognised the voice, belonging to the female avatar of Kitori.

The woman was silent, her head again tilted backwards as an external presence contacted her.

"It appears I've said more than enough. Thank you for listening and I wish you a good day."

With a few swipes of her hands, the remaining players were teleported out.

"Shisutemu shūryō"

A blue light wrapped around her body as she disappeared into light particles.

* * *

><p>"What happened to you?" Matt asked.<p>

It had been two hours since we had an audience with the mysterious GM. I had met up with my friends, inviting Phantom to quest with them.

Currently with me, Matt and Phantom were Creed, Eclypse, Reece, Kyru, Drake, Dominic, Kitori, Prime and Fang.

The rather large group had decided after a long argument to enter a small raid style quest, where the goal was to free a Peach CPU from the clutches of a Level 20 Giga Bowser, collecting as many treasures as they could along the way. I noted that amongst the group of people, Phantom, Kyru, Creed, Kitori and Reece were all Smashers and had attended the strange meeting, however they all acted as if nothing had happened.

**/whisper Creed Why is no one talking about the strange GM lady? Madrack**

I waited for several minutes as Creed's avatar stopped, presumably as he was typing a message.

**/whisper Madrack You hear what she said, we all need to remain quiet or risk losing the opportunity of a free trip to Japan! Creed**

**/whisper Creed, Madrack Are you guys talking about her? Kitori**

**/whisper Kitori, Madrack Yea! Creed**

**/whisper Creed, Madrack, Kitori What are you guys doing? Kyru**

**/Whisper Creed, Madrack, Kyru Talking about The Shiekah Kitori**

"Um, what's keeping you guys?" Drake asked confused.

"Nothing really," Phantom said, clearing what he was about to type.

The group came to a hallway that branched out in two directions, leading them to the right, Eclypse was marching onwards.

"Hold it!" I said, "Why don't we split up and rejoin if we find the boss, that way we can find the maximum amount of loot."

**/whisper Madrack You want to talk about that lady right? Creed**

**/whisper Creed Yea Madrack**

"OK, I'll go with Lucas," Creed announced.

Kitori and Kyru picked up the idea quickly.

"Yea, I'll go that way too," they said at the same time.

Phantom and Reece also opted to travel with me after quickly receiving messages from Kyru. Matt, Eclypse, Drake, Dominic, Prime and Fang all stood opposite the smashers.

"I sense something fishy going on…." Prime said, "You know where all the best loot is don't you?"

"Or perhaps some Smasher discrimination is going on….." Fang added.

"Yea, I don't get this." Drake said, looking around the room.

Things seemed to get tense as the players were seemingly getting annoyed. It was Eclypse that diffused the situation however.

"Guys look, I'm literally next to Creed, if they find anything. I'll know."

**/whisper Creed Dude, how does she not know about GM lady?**

**/whisper Madrack Bathroom Break, got lucky. Creed**

"Let's go already!" Matt said, already moving away from the other group.

The players changed their chat settings to suit their new groups.

"Guys….wait a second" Creed said, before the sound of him muting his headset pinged.

Creed is now set to AFK. Eclypse's avatar also paused, I presumed something was going on between them so as a safty precaution I messaged the group quickly, before they began talking about the GM again.

**/Group No talking about GM lady aloud until Creed gives us the all clear Madrack**

**/Group You mean The Shiekah right? Kyru**

**/Group Why do you call her that? Kitori**

**/Group Some of the other smashers started comparing her to the Shiekah from Ocarina of Time, so I guess the name just stuck on. Kyru**

**/Group You know some of the other smashers? Madrack**

**/Whisper Madrack Wanna hear a joke? Kitori**

**/Group Yea, I'm not just stuck to you losers :P Kyru**

**/Whisper Sure…. Madrack**

**/Group Very mature Kyru… Phantom**

**/Whisper A young kid hears some noise from his parent's room. Kitori**

**/Group lol Kyru**

**/Whisper He decides to look through the keyhole. Kitori**

**/Group So, what now? Phantom**

**/Whisper Then he says: "And they want me to see a shrink because I suck my thumb!" Kitori**

"Aww…..come on really?" I said aloud, mot expecting to hear that kind of joke.

"What?" the others all said, apart from Kitori who was laughing behind her avatar.

"I'm not going to say it….hold on." He replied.

**/Group This is what Kitori just said: A young kid hears some noise from his parent's room. He decides to look through the keyhole. Then he says: "And they want me to see a shrink because I suck my thumb!" Madrack**

It took a few seconds before the others started laughing. Whilst the others were finding the joke funny I managed to find a setting changing my on screen name from Madrack to Lucas.

"Wow….I didn't see that one coming," Kyru said in between small bursts of giggles.

"Yea, that's an interesting sense of humour you've got there." Phantom chuckled.

Creed sounded like he was gasping for breath when I asked him if he was okay.

"You need to learn how to laugh at a joke Lucas, it's good for your health." He finally managed to say.

"I'll take note of that." I replied, noticing that Creed's avatar was moving again."

"So….how did it go Creed?"

"I managed to convince her that it was better if I stayed in a different room, the excuse being that I was feeling a bit gassier than usual."

"Ha, good one," Kitori said.

"Can we get a move on, there was a reason for all this right? Reece reminded us, having remained silent the whole time.

"Sure," I started, leading the group down the dark hallway of Bowser's dungeon. "Let's start with everything we know about this player we're calling The Shiekah."

It was then that their voice chat got cut off. A message appeared on their screens with an image of Ganondorf holding a stop sign.

**/GM Message May I remind you that you are not to speak of the events that took place in the meeting.**

**/Group But we're all smashers here? Creed**

**/GM Message Information can be easily recorded and hacked into if in audio format, we intercept all text communications from certain profiles and chat content, changing the message as we see fit.**

**/Group You were changing our messages? Lucas**

**/GM Message No, there is no need to do that currently, however we will do if necessary.**

All the players remained silent as they read the last line the mystery GM wrote.

**/Group Fine, we'll follow your "rules" Reece**

**/Group Yea Phantom**

**/Group Sure…. Creed**

**/Group So unfair….but okay Kitori**

**/Group Yes ma'am! :p Kyru**

**/Group NP Lucas**

**/GM Message I'm glad to hear that, I'll restore the chat now. Happy raiding!**

The players knew when the chat came back on, because there was white noise in the background. Also the breath of several of the players could be heard from their mikes. There was silence for a while as no one knew what to say, no movement either from the players. We were all annoyed but didn't know how to complain without being watched. Luckily one of us had an idea.

"Did you guys know I'm having a party this week?" Kitori stated.

"What has that got to do with anything?" Phantom asked.

"Well you lot are invited, I mean that's if you live close enough…." She chuckled nervously. "So, if you can make it call me."

"None of us have your number though…" Creed stated the obvious.

"We may not even live in the same country," I added

"Oh…right that's true. But it's 078-43-354-950. Call me anytime, but not when I'm sleeping preferably." She said, sighing and laughing nervously at the same time.

"Sure…" I replied, finally understanding what Kitori was planning.

Why haven't they said anything? I thought to myself as Kitori checked her phone.

**4 New Text Messages from Unknown Numbers**

**1 – It's me Phantom.**

**2 – Hey, Kyru here.**

**3 – Creed, at your service.**

**4 – Lucas, let's talk.**

"That was quick!" Kitori said whilst typing out a message on her phone.

**1 New Text Message from Unknown Number**

**5 – It is I…..Reece!**

Kitori messaged the five players her Skype details, hoping they would have the application installed on their computers. The five then debated via text whether it was worth logging out now to talk about it. They decided it would be better to keep on playing, at least till the quest was over. Creed had made a good point in saying that if the GM's wanted to really keep them quiet they would have stopped Kitori from giving up her number. Reece however countered by saying it was only a ploy to lull them into a false sense of security, so they would readily agree to go on the trip to the development base.

Mightily confused by the exchange of text's I told the group that I was running low on credit and couldn't send too many messages. I then had the idea that we should mute the game's chat functions and use Skype simultaneously in the same way that gamers used to do before in-game chat existed.

* * *

><p>"Ina, what's happening with Group 2?"<p>

"Sir, they believe that we can't hear them now that they are using external communication software. However the SR System has successfully intercepted the Skype call's coming from one of their IP Addresses and I am now listening to them."

"Good, and groups 1 through 5?"

"Group's 1 and 2 are currently offline, 3 had entered a tournament and the remaining two groups are carefully avoiding the subject."

"Anything else?"

"No sir."

"Then order the preparations for their arrival to begin."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

><p>Why me?<p>

The hooded figure muttered singularly, walking down a path leading to a warehouse. The area was a part of the Mushroom Kingdom that had never seen before by humans, untouched by their ability to manipulate this world.

It was pure, yet full of hatred.

"What are you here for?"

The figure looked to see a toad resting against a single black door. The toad was much taller than most of its kind, easily towering the hooded figure. It was clear that it had been working out, probably contracted to do security in non-human territories. It was needless to say that he looked as rough as his voice.

"The past"

It was the phrase needed to get into tonight's public speech. It had come to the spies' attention that these speeches were happening more frequently in the past couple of nights. Ever since 2006 with the basic online integration, reports were being filed. Missing characters, songs, even entire games started disappearing by the hands of this mysterious man. It even got worse, around the release of a highly anticipated game in November 2011, activity reached a record high. Major titles for Project Café were put on severe hold, mostly due to prototypes and finished concepts disappearing night after night. They weren't told though. They were told not to say anything to the company indirectly causing this to happen.

Bad servers?

Hackers?

Any excuse throwing them off the scent from the truth. The attack in November gave them a profile for the attacker; he was clever, skilled in ancient magic and knew how to use our technology. The attack on _that _particular day gave them a suspect, one that they were working close with.

But no, he didn't exactly fit the profile.

The hooded figure entered the building, bumping past a red haired Lord recognisable as Roy from Fire Emblem.

"So even they had turned." She quietly noted to herself.

The room was dark and humid, hundreds of men, creatures, monsters and things were just standing around, all waiting for the mysterious one, who hid behind a fake Majora's Mask. A single light shone on a stage, silence quickly ensured, as they focused their attention on the figure that stood on the stage. A black cloak hugged his body, not giving away any certain features to discern where he hailed from.

All attention doubts were silenced when he began speaking.

"When I was young, I had my whole life ahead of me. Sure, we weren't rich clearly none of us were that important to the world, but we had our pride. Our small falling out with the Hylians was just that, small and personal. We all knew to respect one another's business, watching only from afar and that made us superior."

Various members of the crowd nodded in agreement, some closing their eyes as they thought of times in the past, a time when they would easily call themselves a proud member of this world. "However, this made us easy targets for the technologically advanced outsiders who took control of us using blackmail, trickery and extortion."

The words of agreement started turning into grumbling as the observers intensified in their hatred for the outsiders.

"One day my Master confronted this man. But when he did, that man took him away from me. Then he took my identity away, moulding me into this vision for his gain. I've been hiding behind this facade ever since. "

"As you know, the self-proclaimed Atrixian King rules our world with an iron fist, more powerful than the gods they tried to control and fiendishly evil. They even have the power to rewrite our history."

The collecting gasps caused the masked man to stiffen his resolve and continue his speech.

"Recently, the Dragon Warriors have resurfaced again to appease the Atrixian King. If they were here they would tell you that technology is the way of the future, that we could work together, that we could benefit from the change!" As he spoke his voice raised, before going quiet again.

"But they are wrong."

A low chant of agreement sounded before the man spoke again.

"The only thing technology had brought to the world is pain and suffering. It has been the cause of all our wars, in every era and that is about to change. They say the original 12 have failed us."

The speaker paused, creating great tension in the crowds, especially for the one hooded girl nearer the back who was now frightened at what she saw.

"That is why the divine ones have chosen me. They have granted me an incredibly power, to fully erase a person's existence in both planes of reality…..permanently."

The cheers erupted from the creatures and men, all backing the leadership of the person on stage.

"We will take from them what we rightfully deserve…..our freedom!"

With this a huge banner dropped behind the masked man, a logo of a smash ball in black and red flames, with the letter N in the middle.

"You can call me Nemesis and I will give what is due to those who cross our paths."

"We cannot be stopped anymore; our numbers are too large and grow by the day. No longer will we have to live under the foot of the self proclaimed King. The time has come for the Humans to experience true fear."

The girl instantly started moving, away from the madness.

She had to get out of there or she would blow her cover from the sheer madness she was listening to.

"It wasn't possible right?" she whispered to herself, as she slipped out of a back door she found.

Walking onto the streets, it was still night. No one was in sight and that was exactly what the agent needed. Raising her hand she opened her mouth to say the command that would take her back when she stopped.

A presence, one that she hadn't felt in all her years on the field was behind her, staring at the back of her head. She turned around, greeting the chaotic purple and red mask, but she couldn't be fooled anymore.

The identity of the masked man was as clear as day.

"We meet again, agent Naido."

"So, it is you…" Naido said, backing away slowly.

Nemesis seemed to have blended in the shadows as he grabbed Naido from behind and pulled her hood off. Shifting his mask to properly speak to her, the man whispered quietly.

"The wheels of fate have started moving and there is no place for you humans anymore. It is time for you to be eradicated Naido."

Naido used her free arm and tried to gut the man, but he sensed it coming and stepped backwards. Using the small chance, she ran away from the man, trying to call the command before he reached her again.

Then her legs failed.

They suddenly stopped moving, unable to respond to her desperate urges. Forced to start dragging her herself into an upright position. She raised her right hand and opened her mouth to speak.

"Shisutemu shūryō"

Nothing happened.

"What…."Naido said confused, as she tried again.

His voice cut through the darkness and penetrated her ears.

"I told you, I've been gifted by the divine ones."

"No….it's not possible…" she stammered.

"Yet here I am, and there you are." He answered, stepping ever so closer to the terrified woman.

"You're….you're a monster!" she screamed as he knelt and placed his hand over her mouth.

"No…..your kind are the monsters, I will be your reckoning."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

><p>Many players say the worst thing about an MMO was grinding.<p>

If the game wasn't built to be repetitive, the player would hate the task immensely. However the system behind the newly released Smash Bros was different. The system would accommodate to the players level when such a change was required and make the experience more enjoyable. However there was a limit to how weakened a boss could be for lower levelled players, especially when the boss was part of a raid mission.

"This is impossible!" Eclypse complained, retreating behind Matt as he performed a barrage of light arrow attacks.

The two groups of players had reunited in front of the area where the boss was. The chamber where the Giga monster slept was circular, with a huge chasm between the players and the beast. Four bridges were present, at 90 degree angles from each other, leading to the platform of the overwhelming figure.

Currently the beast was at 95% health.

They also had been fighting for the last 20 minutes.

One of the praised features of this game was the ability to leave most boss rooms any time you wished, useful if a tactic employed wasn't working or you found yourself under levelled. It allowed the players to restock their equipment and call backup. The only problem was that all damage dealt would be nullified and more backup would increase the stats of the boss.

It also wasn't easy getting away from a creature that could kill you in a few moves.

"Creed…you're running low buddy…" Reece warned him as he retreating behind Kitori and Phantom, who were somewhat able to cancel out some of the beast's moves.

"Did you eat at some more steak Phantom?" I asked.

"Yep…" He replied quickly.

The sound of rapid button presses come from various players as they attempted to hold back the boss. However someone would occasionally mess up their shielding and take a hit, their HP falling in rather large chunks, faster than it could be healed with items.

"So how do we get out?" Kyru asked quietly.

"We shouldn't need to retreat!" Phantom growled, getting blasted by a whirlwind of flames.

"It would be most unwise to die!" Matt said, still supporting his side with arrows.

There was truth to that statement though.

Normally death was part of the whole MMO experience. However with this game, after you reached level 15, death became an expensive failure. Not only did you risk losing the gear you were carrying, but if a player was killed in battle they would also lose stat points based on their level. This meant that level 20 players could quickly drop back to 15 or an even lower level if they were not careful.

As the elected leader of the raid, Creed decided to call everyone back. They started shuffling backwards, the faster players staying behind to draw the beast's attention. Once a player had stepped off the bridge, they were put in 3D mode, with the health of the boss still visible.

"So what do we do now?" Kitori asked, healing herself with a Fire Emblem Vulnerary.

"We need more players!" Fang said, having not spoken in a while, it surprised a few of the players.

"Agreed," Kyru followed "We need more people if we want to take out this boss."

"Maybe we're just doing something wrong?" I added

"Like what?" Phantom asked, "Not hitting a weak spot or something?"

"That's a good idea actually!" Reece replied. "Matt, have you heard anything about this boss revolving around weak spots?"

Matt was silent for a while, the sound of typing could be heard.

"Not really, but I've got an idea. Everyone that's healed and ready to fight should head back onto the stage. I'm going to start up a spell that allows me to search in game information; it also has things that players have inputted."

"Why didn't you do this before?" Eclypse asked, slightly irritated.

"I can't use it in Smash Mode and it costs nearly all my MP, it also get's auto cancelled if a nearby mob tries to attack me."

"Still should have told us…." Eclypse mumbled.

"Well that seems like the plan then!" Creed announced, moving towards one of the bridges.

The group, split again into two, this time with Matt staying behind.

"Okay, I've got some bits of information already; make sure to avoid his stomp moves as they leave a -10 debuff on your defence. Anyone with ice attributes will find that their moves are not as effective against this boss. Also Light type weapons deal extra damage."

"Not what we need right now…." Fang said, avoiding a swipe from Giga Bowser's claws.

"Be patient..." Matt said, sorting throughout the tons of player information.

"Weak spot….."

"Weak spot…."

"Found it!" he exclaimed.

"Well?" Eclypse asked impatiently.

"His tail and feet are more susceptible to impact and slash attacks, whilst his head should be targeted by projectiles." Matt explained.

With this information the team fared better, slightly so.

One of the interesting aspects of Bosses in this game was the ability to use their physical features as temporary platforms if you timed your jump correctly. Eclypse, Creed and Lucas took advantage of this when throwing items into the Beast's eyes, temporarily blinding him. Then Phantom, Kyru and Fang would get in close and deal as much damage as they could before Giga Bowser could perform the defensive Blizzard Spin.

"Guys, not many people have defeated this boss," Matt started, "They say he changes tactics when at a lower percentage!"

Phantom Bowser's appeared once the bosses HP went under 90%. These shadow clones of Brawl's Bowser were set at 1/10 the strength of the boss, however there were at least 20 of them to deal with. This kept the others occupied for around 15 minutes.

"If we can conserve our health we can win this!" Kitori said, trying to encourage the team.

Her words did encourage the others as they continually battled, chipping away at the health of the boss whilst facing the smaller minions. It was with the defeat of the last Phantom Bowser, that the bosses HP had decreased to 49%.

The battle went downhill from there.

The first notable change was the arena. The area between each bridge was slowly filled by a rising stone platform. The second change was that Giga Bowser was now able to move freely in a 3D environment. This caused trouble for the players as they were still only able to move to the centre and back. However it was quickly discovered that by attempting a spot dodge the player would move either upwards or downwards depending on which direction they pressed.

This gave the players more manoeuvrability, a mechanic that seemed to have been taken from the popular Tekken franchise.

The final change that was noticeable was that Giga Bowser had some new attacks. From his claw, he summoned a meteorite that smashed into Creed, Eclypse and Kitori, decreasing their HP into single digits with ease.

"This is bad…" Phantom said, attempting to move away from the freeze breath that Giga Bowser had started using.

"This is terrible!" Reece said, "We need to pull back, we're not in a suitable position to revive any dead or simply just finishing this battle."

"Agreed," Creed replied, "We need to evacuate."

"We'll need to leave the room at this point, Giga Bowser can use the entire arena now and force you to fight." Matt added as the others slowly backed away.

With no arguments, the team backtracked into the safety zone, where they couldn't be forced into battle.

"So what do we do now?" Matt asked who had started taking notes for future battles.

"We need help," Kyru stated, "let's just join with another group."

"But we needed to leave the room...," I started saying.

"And that resets the bosses' health….but not ours." Reece finished

We were now standing in the chamber outside the boss door which was big enough for 100 people to stand in. Creed went through his settings, looking for the group controls.

Whilst Creed was looking through the menu his avatar was doing a similar animation. This action reminded me of the arrangement of buttons and options that The Shiekah was using in her meeting with us smashers.

I thought about the environment we had faced the boss in, my mind drifting back to a question that Kitori had asked the GM.

"_Are you in the game?" Kitori had asked._

"Lucas?"

_If that were true, it would mean that the fighting system built for the game was meant to be used for a free roaming environment and the Smash Mode was only a placeholder until the system was ready. Or perhaps until that hardware the lady talked about was commercialized._

"Lucas?"

_It would also explain why they were so secretive about the whole thing. Such technology would revolutionise everything they knew about entertainment. The uses could extend to all forms of daily lifestyle and beyond._

"Lucas!"

Coming out from my deep thought process, I only just realised that someone was calling me.

"Oh, sorry…what was it?"

"I asked if the game allowed you to use your final smash on the boss."

I paused to consider the question.

"Oh, well I don't think so. Many of my abilities were disabled because I wasn't in the right fighting mode or something similar."

"What fighting mode?" Fang asked confused.

"I'm not sure myself, I only hovered above it quickly with my mouse. It's not easy to switch from controller to mouse that quickly in a battle."

"I've found another group that are willing to join us, it's a rather special one too." Creed cut in.

"What's so special about them?" Eclypse asked.

"They're almost all compromised of Smashers."

"Oh…great, just what we needed." Dominic commented.

"I thought they were rare?" Fang asked.

"They are…." Kitori confirmed.

"Let's just allow them to join us, how many of them are they?" Drake asked.

"24"

"Wait what!" most of them said at once.

"There are 4 non-smashers as well."

The chat was almost filled with comments about there being too many smashers already in the group. The sound became almost unbearable until Creed muted everyone apart from himself.

"Jeez guys, just deal with it. We need them to finish this boss, I didn't say we should make friends with them and quest all the time." He sighed before continuing, "I'm going to un-mute you guys then allow them to join us, and also they should appear just under that second chandelier on the left."

With a few button presses, the mute was taken off and a huge group of players instantly appeared.

The first thing that came to mind when all the Smashers appeared was that there must be significant surveillance on the group. I grimaced thinking about the rather rude intrusion from the GM but hoped that the others hadn't run into a similar problem. It would be bad if the GM's lost interest or trust with us so quickly.

The silence was too much.

"Um…..hey there," Kitori said awkwardly. "Um…."

"I don't think we should exchange names," Eclypse cut in, "It would be a waste of time."

There were various murmurs of agreement.

"What's this sign that appears on your profiles?" Fang asked.

"Oh….that's our guild name." A male voice answered, "We're The Smashers, it's a guild made for smashers, but we do accept non-smashers. We were currently using this raid as an induction test, to see if the newer recruits were worth keeping in."

"That's all well and good, but who are you?" Drake asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot. I'm Skyko, standing right here," he said walking to the front of the group so everyone knew who was talking. "I'm also the Sub-Leader of this group. Our actual leader couldn't be here for the raid, she had other things to attend to."

The guy standing in front of them had light brown skin, with his hair shaved army style. It was clear that he was Hylian due to his ears, however he also had pure white eyes which stood out to anyone looking at him. Wearing what looked like a blue armoured sleeveless hoodie over a white tunic, the level 27 Smasher appeared to be a medieval gangster. He also had a white Pauldron donned by the Knight class with a Smash Ball insignia on his left shoulder and a matching satchel hooked to his hip.

"That's cool, I'm Creed." the level 22 Smasher said, who also stood in front of his group, "I'm the sort of temporary leader of our little party."

"Why are you teaming with us?" Kyru said.

Skyko paused slightly before replying.

"We were surprised to find even more smashers here, but I suppose it would have happened eventually."

Although the others did not hear it, Creed, Phantom and Reece gasped slightly. The conversation was starting to head down a dangerous path.

"However, there is no point in delaying the battle. As soon as you're ready, we'll all enter the chamber."

I made a mental note to ask Skyko about The Smashers later. As the two groups entered the chamber, I noticed that the boss arena had changed. Instead of there being four bridges that lead to the boss, there were now ten of them. This allowed all forty people in the room to participate in the battle at once.

The scene also sparked something in Lucas's mind.

_If people were going to be able to enter the game like that woman, would that mean we would be able to see, hear, taste, smell and touch everything? Would I have the feeling of impending doom, standing next to my comrades as we face against the toughest of foes? Would we be able to experience death?_

As the questions swirled around my mind, the battle had started without him. Having not been paying too much attention, I saw my HP decrease by half when I got flung into Creed and Reece.

"Watch it Lucas!" Reece warned.

"Oh, right…sorry." I said, focusing on the battle.

"Quick question though, how is everyone chatting, but we're not hearing?" Phantom asked.

"Localised hearing," Matt cut in "It's made to replicate human hearing and works with distances."

"Oh, makes sense and sounds cool too," Reece replied.

"Get ready for Phase 2 guys!" Creed warned, jumping over Giga Bowser's tail and stabbing it with his long sword, the words 'Critical Hit' appeared briefly.

A deafening roar pushed back all the players to the centre of the bridges they were stood on.

"Right, plan Alpha!" Skyko said to everyone.

Almost instantly over half of his guild were in formation, projectile type characters such as the angels, Hammer bro's and Hylians were at the back, a few healers were in the middle and at the front was a mixture of Gorons, Humans and Laguz creatures acting as Tanks and Damage units.

The other 12 split into four groups of three, where they protected the main group by dealing with the Phantom Bowser's that started appearing again.

Creed's team were where tasked with the most dangerous job, being the distraction. The group lightly copied the formation of The Smashers by moving Fang, Prime, Drake and Matt to the back, whilst Lucas, Creed, Reece and Phantom constantly ran back and forth, switching places with Dominic, Kitori, Eclypse and Kyru.

This seemingly worked as Giga Bowser found it hard to target one specific player and they were all spread too far apart to successfully hit them all at once. The smaller support teams even managed to deal with all the Phantom Bowser's easily.

Its HP had decreased to 15% when the monster entered its last phase.

The guide that Matt had seen said that the monster would move much faster in his last phase. However not even the other group was ready for the speed this monster used, closing the gap between itself and two random players, picking them up and swallowing them whole.

The HP's of the two players who were both members of The Smashers depleted instantly.

The claws of the beast shone a crimson red, meaning it had activated its special ability Repented Slash, a move that is more likely to land a critical hit than most other attacks.

In the next five minutes a further 7 players were lost, including Dominic, Matt and Fang.

The chaotic killing seemed to continue endlessly, it was only when a bright yellow Mobian by the name of Thunder who used the ability Shine Spark, that everything seemed to stop. The ability caused a huge flash that caused the great beast to stumble.

"Counter attack?" the level 31 male said, whilst charging at the boss with his lightning charred blade.

It took the rest a few seconds to follow suit, but the time needed for the boss to recover the distraction attack was one second too late. With many blows to its shell the monster roared in pain as it exploded into dark magic.

"We did it…." Creed said, "But as what cost?"

"Oh why so serious, it's just a game…." Eclypse chuckled darkly.

The next few moments were much of a blur to me, the two groups started sorting out the loot as well as offering all of us invitations into The Smashers. We declined, but they didn't seem too phased about that, instead saying they would see some of us later, of course only a few of us knew what that really meant.

A few private messages later and the parties disbanded, leaving Lucas and Phantom left alone in the exit area of the castle dungeon.

"So I suppose I'll see you when we go on the trip then, assuming you're coming?" Phantom asked.

"Yeah, I think I will. Too good of a chance to pass up, also there's some things I need to ask about the game and it's system, hopefully what they show us will answer the questions."

"What kind of questions?"

"Umm, nothing to worry about now, just nerd stuff." I lied, "I'll tell you on the plane or wherever we meet."

"It's a plan then." Phantom replied

"Cool, later bro."

"Yep see ya!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Smashers! I am the director of operations, Chiba Momiji."<p>

We had arrived at the former research building for Nintendo only moments ago. Expecting to be overwhelmed with Nintendo themed images and friendly smiles, I was surprised by the quiet and almost secretive atmosphere of the building. The outside of the building was rather bland, being almost fully white in colour. The square building was protected by a small perimeter of land, security patrolling with light firearms. The feeling of being watched was uncanny, cameras covering all and every corner one would look at. From the chrome furnished chairs to the high performance lights, the area screamed futuristic, yet didn't shove it all in your face.

The inside of the building was serene.

"As you know, you have been chosen to test out the next generation of gaming today, proving that once again Nintendo will be the leaders in gaming innovation for the years to come."

A short yet piercing sound came from Momiji's pocket. He made an apologetic face and answered his phone, his expression changing from one of annoyance to shock, although he masked the change with the expertise of an actor. The next few words were spoken in Japanese and in a rather hush tone. His voice wavered for a moment as he seemingly asked a question, his eyes never leaving the group for a second. When he was done he closed the phone and smiled lightly.

"I'm sorry for the delay, unfortunately we had an...accident with one of the units in the testing room. Fortunately no one is hurt but we won't be able to use the machines until later in the evening."

I didn't know why but I could tell he was lying, it all seemed to convenient for it to be a mere accident, but before anyone could ask a question he continued talking.

"Please understand that there is nothing to be concerned about, our test results getting better by the day, and subjects are able to use the equipment for full length experiences with no side effects." his words did little to comfort the group, but they felt reassuring nonetheless.

He left promptly.

Throughout the rest of the day we did so many things that we forgot what had occurred that morning. Accompanied by a woman who called herself Satu Takara and another who simply went by the name Ina. They had told us that they were our guides and security for the day. Although I didn't want to doubt their abilities to handle any situation I couldn't help but feel as if we were in some sort of secret government building. The security inside and outside was too much for a normal gaming company, even one with technology that could make them unbelievably rich. But as I thought about it I concluded that my ignorance of Japanese culture could be the roadblock in my understanding of this scenario.

_Perhaps I'm simply thinking too hard about it._

We had played many different consoles throughout the day, including the ones already in the market, prototypes for consoles that were scrapped and even hardware for future ideas including a rudimentary holographic system that vaguely resembled a popular children's card game that I enjoyed fantasying about when I was younger.

We got to play around with the software used to create these games, the designer within dying of happiness. One of the members of the guild The Smashers had wandered about, the girl who went by the name Fate had apologised more times than I thought necessary as Takara gave her a talk about always staying within the general area. One of the people I had seen in the smash tournament, Muto, had gotten a little too into the development software we were given to try. Although the employees didn't want to admit it, you could tell that they were impressed with what they say.

A person by the name of Gus had been at the back of the group for some time, he tried the games and consoles when prompted to but hardly spoke to anyone. I couldn't say I'd seen him before, not at the tournament or as a part of that guild but he wore a thin hoodie with the hood covering his head. Takara thought it was best that he didn't wear it as she considered it a security risk and after several prompts got the teenager to remove the hood, much to the amusement of Ina who chuckled quietly in the corner.

It was only when we stopped to have lunch that I'd realised the group was very split. We were sat in a large room with tables scattered everywhere. Many people including a guy who went by the name Rex ate their lunch alone, not really attempting to speak to others. It was only the group that formed the guild and my friends, both new and old, that actually spoke to people. It was kind of disappointing, even if they were all content with staying alone, but I realised that sometimes the life of a gamer is just that.

At least I thought that was the case until Molly came into the picture. I don't know how she did it, but within the 90 minute lunch break we had she managed to befriend everyone in the room including Takara who she now called Satu and Ina who sat by the formers side. Within minutes she had everyone seated around a large table, the talk was loud but friendly, much warmer that the atmosphere had been earlier.

Once she spoken the sacred words 'Zelda' everyone brightened up. But then again when amongst Nintendo fans it's rather hard to find someone who doesn't like that franchise. Saaba had been the centre piece of one argument when someone asked the question which is better between Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. In her defence, she defended her opinion with much heart, declaring that both games had their own good points and bad as well as the fact that the latter wouldn't exist without the former. Takara was the one who broke up the argument, in fact once we really got to know her she was quite the colourful person. Her stories were always bold and dare I say risqué.

Our time afterwards was spent playing Smash, but we had a lot more fun than that morning. Playing Smash Bros for Wii U, we played a tournament mode that was scheduled to be released for the game soon called VIS or Very important Smasher where two groups of 4 played on large maps with the goal of protecting their designated VIS and attacked the opponents one. The match would end when the VIS was smashed out. An interesting thing that I noticed was that the re-spawn time was longer than the average match.

Because there were 42 of us, Sakata and Ina joined a guy that I vaguely remembered as a Deku called Jyroto and a female Sunflora Pokémon that I saw in that guild whose name was Petunia, both in game and in real life. I was mildly surprised when I saw this team perform so much better than the others. One of the highlights was the match between Dream team 1 consisting of Creed, Kitori, Reece and I against Dream team 2 that contained Phantom, Kyru, Molly and another guy called Isaac. That particular match lasted a while, mainly because both teams had members that understood the play styles of the other team. It didn't help that we picked characters similar to our fighting Style. Whilst that match showed how skilled we were, my team making its way into the finals, we had no chance against the team with Sakata and Ina. Sakata chose Zelda and Ina used Sheik. As we played the match we ended up glancing at each other momentarily, the same message on our minds.

Those two on their own could have won the whole thing.

I sighed in defeat as we came second, it was a defeat to be proud of, even if we all felt a bit 'salty' as the competitive smash community would say.

All the fun and games ended as soon as Momiji entered the room, Sakata and Ina straightened up immediately. Even though both were considered to be in the same position of power as Momiji, their salary confirming that, his standing with the Chief was too great to be taken lightly.

"What is it?" Ida asked rather cautiously.

"We're ready for you," was all Momiji said, turning to leave the room.

Sakata's eyes widened for a second before fallen in guilt, even though the 'accident' in the test room was information she wasn't cleared to know about she had heard the details from other sources, being in charge of security did have its benefits. Although the thought was temporarily empowering she felt guilty about the guests were about to go through. How one of their 'agents' had died was still under suspicion. She only knew because a report had to be filed to her whenever a body was transferred through the premises and the on-site paramedics were called to check on the body.

As they walked towards the test location, Sakura checked her company provided phone, reading more into the incident. The agent who was only known as Naido was assigned to a department that Sakata had only seen mentioned once before, they reported directly to the Chief and were very secretive. The unit she had been using was fully functional, there were no recordings of malfunctions or voltage spikes, she had simply died.

_That was troubling._

Sakata put away the phone and spared a glance at Ina who also had a worrying look on her face. Although her department had nothing to do with security she knew that Ina was just as worried as her, it wasn't the first time an 'accident' had happened with the company. The first time was during a test of the Immersion System that a user had been overloaded with sensory inputs and suffered from fits of random sense overload for weeks after. At first Ida was blamed for her program, as it was the one that was supposed to handle such things but after much investigation from her part it was discovered that the hardware itself wasn't as developed as it could have been. In fact the program was so well developed it was considered too complex for the current system to handle. This happened when the Neural systems were still running on standard x86 programming architecture. The Neural-Net Device was expensive and could have been made without the financing of such a company like the one they worked with, having employees that happened to like Nintendo games was simply a bonus, it meant that work would be conducted more efficiently.

Both young women entered the testing room where they say the Chief talking with Momiji and another man who seemed to be an actual representative of the famous gaming company. Although the Cheif eyed Sakura as she entered the room, the other man was the first to appear to notice the group, walking forwards to great the group with a smile on his face.

_He doesn't know. _Sakura thought grimly.

* * *

><p>Whilst the smashers were gearing up to test out the new equipment a different group were also getting ready to act out a plan. A plan that they had rehearsed many times over, using the equipment provided by Nemesis and the information extracted from the once alive Naido, the group had prepared extensively for the operation that would start a new war. One between those from the human world and the residents of the other realm a universe that they felt they had the right to defend, a world they called Atrixia. Whilst many questioned how Nemesis got access to the equipment non voiced their concerns. Nemesis had proven with the execution of the human agent that he was willing to resort to the cruellest forms of torture to get what he needed.<p>

The plan was simple.

A team would attack the stronghold, where the chosen ones were being kept, used as proxies for the other worlds propaganda machines. Their task was to wipe out any and all targets within the building, as well as destroying the database where the souls chosen were held. This attack was led by none other than Roy and Mewtwo, although well known in both worlds the two had shown the sense to leave the hands of the manipulative villains from the other world before they could become corrupted. The duo had worked with Dr Mario before he was tempted back into the group of chosen Smashers. That betrayal had left them in a sour mood, so much so that they volunteered to lead the first strike team, a fitting end to the bond they once shared with those of the Smash Bros.

The Second Team was one of the most important, being the largest in size and made up of many sub groups. These assortment of monsters, humans and other creatures would attack the entire Smash Bros world, providing a distraction that even the humans wouldn't be able to deal with easily. These were led by various generals and military leaders that had raised in rank within the underworld of Atrixia. All had come to terms with dying, something the humans seemed to be content with causing.

The final team was led by Nemesis' second in command, a mysterious fellow who hardly spoke. This team, consisting of only 3 people, were tasked with finding and killing the people who were scheduled to enter the Atrixian world through what they called 'The Bridge'. Each member of this advanced unit was given a personal weapon by Nemesis himself, capable of killing a human in the same way he had demonstrated the night before. A Bow, Staff and Sword were the three items, each seemingly enchanted by ancient magic and looked older than time itself yet felt futuristic. The team had been waiting at the designated location for hours, waiting for the signal that meant the attack would begin.


	12. Chapter 12

A simple plan meant everything worked right, that's how the boss liked things.

The duo were wearing armour, quite simple in design yet sleek. The blend of black and red certainly gave off a terrifying impression to those that saw it. Each of these suits of armour were unique, enhancing the abilities of the General that wore them.

The boss liked some of his Generals.

The duo had split, each one followed by a strike team of Space Pirates. The once proud collection of races had long been split and broken, forced to the brink of extinction because of the accursed bounty hunter, Samus Aran. Today they relished in the fact that they would destroy the puppet, the proxy that brought them great shame. When the day was over the Space Pirates would have fulfilled their contract with Nemesis and start rebuilding their empire.

The boss was very calculative in his plans.

At different times, both Mewtwo and Roy had volunteered to lead the mission against the fortress, Nemesis knew that both were holding strong emotions for those within the base, that the two wanted to terminate their former teammates as a respectful gesture. It was for this reason that both ended up on the job. Whilst both had the rank of general within Nemesis' private forces the man himself didn't trust either warrior. He knew their emotions for those within may sway their decision making capabilities. It was for this reason that the man sent a spy within the Space Pirate faction, although looking like an ordinary special ops agent, the pirate was paid almost triple the usual fee for his special services, the agent himself having been on the List of Former Lord Ridley, the once feared leader had long been lost to those from the other world.

The boss chose a great time to attack.

The area was quieter than usual, a few high level creatures had been placed in strategic locations as a means to prevent the ever so curious player. These creatures were certainly "hard" to beat, their levels augmented and their stats changed to give players a hard time. The creatures themselves were not alive, simple machines that were enhanced with dark magic to help the monsters move and attack trespassers. They'd been designed to look like Darknuts from the Zelda series, their armour rustier and wore torn to show off how "battle hardened" they supposedly were. Nemesis had chosen this design to avoid suspicion from players. Silent events were common in this type of gameplay, meaning that rare weapons or materials could be obtained from the nearby mobs. However since the area was already marked as a high rank area and the Dark Knights were technically impossible to beat it ensured that no one made it far enough to see what was about to occur.

The groups moved fast. Roy had taken his squad and moved around the base, looking for a gutter that contained a secret passageway. The pirates with him were equipped with stealth gear, as well as paralyser guns that not only stunned those from this world but disrupted the phase of those from the other world. Roy had been told the access code to the building, Nemesis' had informants from every corner of this world, his connections enough to scare some of the more notorious underworld villains. Once inside the building the group waited in the shadows of the secret area, knowing that moving any further forwards would alert those inside to their presence. They waited for the signal that meant they could advance.

The second group, led by Mewtwo, were quite different.

Their equipment suggested that they were about to fight in a long lasting skirmish, wearing heavy body armour and carrying large federation military grade guns, another present from the late Lord Ridley. The team marched up to the drawbridge of the castle, usually closed to those under a certain level. The PSI Pokémon could feel the gaze of the hidden security cameras, he knew they were watching and he knew what he had to do. All it took was one attack, with a wave of his hand the Pokémon sent a Shadow Ball at the gates of the castle. Normally attacks like this would do nothing, bringing up a notice for players that the object was unbreakable, but the suit Mewtwo wore offered certain privileges.

Like the ability to reveal the true health value of all objects.

The Shadow Ball itself had been rather weak, hardly focused and meant as a means to set off the internal alarms system so when the drawbridge almost fell down Mewtwo was surprised.

"Stronger than I thought," he mused to himself as the others around him started bombarding the walls with grenade launchers. Simply being in the presence of the Pokémon was enough to grant them the ability to destroy all objects, so as the walls of the castle slowly started taking on damage the drawbridge lowered awkwardly and a platoon of Knights marched onwards.

The soldiers carried huge shields, white with silver trimmings. On the front the smash symbol was engraved, reflecting light towards the enemies. The Knights themselves were similarly dressed, wearing white armour, polished to perfection with the smash logo emblazed on as many pieces as possible. If it weren't for the blank shadow faces that stared through the helms you would have thought a high level guild had arrived.

Mewtwo smirked, although he understood his role in this mission as well as his own goals, he knew that this particular aspect of the battle would be fun.

With the signal received Roy moved further into the base, knowing that all eyes would be off them momentarily. Occasional a human character would walk past and the group would be forced to cloak themselves in fear of getting caught. By the time they had reached their destination the bombardment had stopped but the sound of battle continued.

"They must really be in the thick of it," Roy spoke aloud, "let's go!"

The door in front of them was something they were used to, of human origin and easily opened. As Roy moved to enter the required code it opened from within and a man stepped out, dressed in a rather generic uniform. The grey overalls were bland to say the least as well as the face of the human who wore them, his glasses looked like they did little to improve the eyesight and were nothing more than an aesthetic design choice. Even the white lab coat did little to impress the red-haired Lord.

"I guess we can't all be amazing…"he murmured, eyeing the man as he took a few steps back.

Roy studied his footsteps as the Space Pirates slowly surrounded him, each step was near perfect, his cloak would always move in the same pattern and the expression on his face hardly changed. With a sigh of relief Roy smiled inwardly and raised the weapon he had been holding in his hand. The sword was reminiscent of the Brave Sword, a weapon he had once used in a war many years ago, however its metal seemed different than before. Not only were it'd edges engraved with an ancient language, but the handle itself was dark grey, close to black in colour. Roy felt its weight, rather light for its size and surprisingly durable. One thing he had been told when given the weapon was that it would not break as most weapons do, a feature that required the sword draining part of the user's life-force to sustain itself.

A quick strike dispatched the scientist. The avatar forced to log out due the powerful nature of the sword. He knew that if the human had logged in through the other means that he would have been forced to erase him, much like the Agent Nemesis had caught not too long ago. He shuddered at the thought as the Space Pirates eyed him in silence, waiting for the order.

"Not yet," he said to them, causing a few eyebrows to raise. "We need to get closer to the main control room first."

The group moved quickly and quietly, the Lord dispatching any scientist he came across, all wearing the same combination of jumpsuit and lab coat. He thanked the heavens that those on the other side had listened to his warning and logged in the normal way.

'Yes' he thought to himself, 'I am a double agent after all'

* * *

><p>The Second Team were either brave or stupid. Nemesis didn't care as he sent them out, they were expendable units anyway.<p>

Surprisingly many of the generals were in fact Toads. Different in appearance yet similar to the ones that people had come to know. They had long forsaken their lives, sickened by the happy-go-lucky nature of their brothers, who insisted that following the Princess in her peach treaty between the two worlds was a great idea. The Toads were actually clones, born in the same underground field that those from the other world had given them. The mushroom motif had become so popular that the country had changed almost everything about itself to match this new biological advancement in ecological warfare.

The kingdom once known as the Celes Empire used to have the most influence within Atrixia, but lost it all when it established relations with the other world. The other countries such as Old Hyrule had instantly rejected such an idea but eventually came over when certain events in time mysteriously changed. When the country flooded no one batted an eyelid, when war came to the borders of all reams no one ran in panic. It all happened in a dreamlike sequence, events that should have caused panic yet the people followed almost willingly. It was only a few that really noticed, those were the ones that hated the humans the most.

The Toads gained awareness of their existence not to long after the first Celestian civil war. The war had been unplanned but was a mess, a battle between two of the same factions of clones. It amused Nemesis when he learnt how the humans saw the war, the toads had changed to a more disgusting, ugly form. The fact that Mario seemed cheerful when he ploughed through legions of warriors was sickening. So many-a Toad rose through the ranks, disgusted by their mistreatment and hatred towards the royal family who were so content with this war, the treatment that the lower class were given.

They attacked simultaneously.

The forests of New Hyrule, Skyworld, Viridian City, Altea. Any area that was connected to the main server was attacked. Players were suddenly ambushed by hideous creatures, war veterans that had gone through mutilation and worse, hoping that any little they did changed their world for the better. There were other worlds, accessible only to higher level players such as Zebes, Corneria and Neo-Earth, home to the world famous F-Zero races, which were attacked by the Space Pirates. Originally the plan was to only attack the most populated areas, but pirates were too proud of themselves to fight alongside inferior creatures. They insisted they challenge stronger players, those that were a worthy challenge.

Samus Aran was a taboo subject for the pirates, for them the hunter was a complicated subject. Due to the mysterious way the humans had changed space time, the pirates had lost much but gained everything. At one point they were supreme rulers, a weak race that focused on negations over conquest, but had some way come to control the whole known universe. When things changed they remembered, for them it was a serene sensation, knowing what you were once before and what you are now.

What had been one before was now two.

The Chozo were still diplomatic, still peaceful, still weak. In all the years they existed they helped those they came across, respected as the wisest of races. When they died it was tragic, leaving the known phase of reality. They left behind a bounty of goods, weapons and information, something only the chosen one would be able to use. In the end they were selfish in their desires as good intentions always are, not knowing what pain and suffering their kindness brought.

The Tynetians were fierce, proud and strong. As if their personalities moulted from their other half, the harsh race evolved into something sinister. A race that lost all respect for those around it, a race that respected the strong. A race that created creatures like Ridley. Such a race was doomed to fail, yet it's ace in the whole, the Space Pirates, thrived. Such a project was so secret not even the future-seeing Chozo could predict. If the Chozo created the ultimate warrior then the Tynetians created the ultimate opponent.

The Space Pirates who created themselves, who were halves of one whole, who were once at the pinnacle of existence didn't care. It interested them, this change that brought chaos and destruction. The ongoing battle against the hunter, a creation their other older half had created was interesting. Would this Samus share their memories? Was she a true creation or just a test left behind by the weaker half?

Nemesis promised answers, so they fought.

Attacks were devastating. Players forces into battle before they knew what happened, the re-spawn rate suddenly increasing 10-fold. There was nothing to be done, no reset, no shut-down, no solution. The humans had backed themselves into a corner when they connected the worlds, a bridge built that would never shatter.

But who were they to ponder of such things, after all they were nothing but a distraction.

* * *

><p>Author Note:<p>

I know a few people have been waiting for the next chapter, this is part 1 of 3 for the first main event of the story. I managed to squeeze this out after coursework deadlines and before exams so I hope that the quality hasn't suffered too much because of that. To bring some attention to a few points, I've changed how the Nintendo Universe works, how we perceive the Nintendo Universe and those that live within it. As usual there are many references to games within the story if you notice them and references to events in our history (gaming-wise). No OC's appear in this chapter as you've noticed but they will certainly do so in the next one, I'm unsure when that'll be...most likely after my exams...so look forward to the next update in June hopefully!


	13. Chapter 13

"Hello, I am Saionji Kazu but please call me Kazu." the man greeted the group with a smile on his face.

"Today we have a wonderful opportunity to bestow upon you as dedicated fans of Smash Bros and our products in general. We hope that today you get a good sense of what the future of gaming is going towards and that you give us your thoughts on system we will allow you to use."

He went on to explain that he was in charge of handling relations between Super Smash Bros' parent company and the development team. His English was fairly good but some of the others found phrases hard to understand. After a brief explanation of the company and some promises that we could visit the real headquarters where some of the most famous developers in the world worked the next day.

As the man left everyone started muttering to the person beside them quietly, pretending not to notice the engineers who were busy running about the place taking final looks at the weird pod like devices around them.

"That's the guy from this morning right?" asked the Deku player.

"Yea," I replied, "what do think of all this Jyroto?"

"Not sure to be honest, it all looks very cool but I feel like we've just rushed into this."

"I know the feeling" Reece butted in, looking up at the ceiling with its array of white and blue panels.

A cough caught everyone's attention. I looked to see who was about to talk and couldn't help but admire the taste of the man in front of us. He wore a 3 piece suit that was all black with golden trims around the blazer. Everything from his slick hair to the polished shoes told us that we were in the presence of someone important. As he walked I noticed that he eyed all of us with cold eyes, not

"Looks like the Chief is showboating a bit," I heard Ina say quietly.

I looked towards her only for her eyes to dart to a smart phone where she focused her attention, tapping away at the screen as if she was playing a game.

"Thank you for coming," the man spoke, "we are pleased to have you today."

All eyes followed the man as he walked towards one of the walls. At first everyone had no idea what he intended to do but as they looked closely they could make out the faint outline of a large door along the wall the man now stood at. He raised his hand and placed it on a panel that started glowing, scanning his hand.

"Fancy" Isaac whistled, grinning in awe.

The man smirked for a second before the door opened.

"I am the CEO of the Quantum Network Task Force. This group is the core foundation of the technology that you are about to witness today. I'll leave you in the hands of Mr Chiba Momiji, Sakata and Ina who you've already been acquainted with." as he spoke the doors opened, revealing a room that looked more futuristic than anything they had seen yet.

The room was completely white. The floors, walls and ceiling seemed to merge together as the whole room appeared to be illuminated save for three large black panels on the walls. Inside the room were strange capsule like machines, lined up in six rows of ten. Each one was identical to the one next to it. The pods were large enough two skinny people, features a stainless steel shell and almost seemed to float in the air, however we were quick to notice that the pods were connected to white pillars.

As the CEO left, walking rather briskly away from the group, he pulled out his tablet and started tapping away at the screen. Ina watched as he walked, biting the left side of her lip as she thought about the events that were about to happen. Momiji stepped out in front of everyone with a nervous smile across his face, he stood in front of the nearest pod before talking.

"This is a Neural-Net Immersion Device that we have specifically tailored for your use today. Although it looks rather big, the core technology behind it is no larger than a helmet." as he spoke he pressed a button on one of the pods and the glass door opened. "These pods are completely safe, we've been testing them thoroughly for years and wish to use the technology behind them to move the gaming world into new heights."

As he spoke my mind went back to the moment that mysterious Sheikah player summoned us all, her movement did seem smoother than usual and even then I had suspected there was more to the game then the developers let out.

"Who wants to try it first?" Momiji asked, not surprised to see everyone reluctant.

"I've seen enough Anime to know where this goes..." someone had whispered, much to the agreement of the others.

After a few seconds of silence he coughed uncomfortably and shifted his tie, looking at Ina who had gone back to looking at her phone.

"Ina, perhaps you'd like to be the first person to demonstrate how it works?" he said, hoping that it would ease everyone's worries of the machines.

For a second Ina was stunned, she never expected to be a demonstration, especially as her in-game avatar was one she'd rather not have linked to her at this moment. However she knew better than to question Momiji's orders and casually walked to the pod, climbing in whilst allowing Momiji to briefly explain how each part worked. Satu fidgeted in place, quietly annoyed that she hadn't been picked.

"Takara and I will ensure everyone is fitting in correctly before Takara herself will join you, taking you to an area where you can fully experience the wonders of our technology" Momiji spoke, his eyes shifting between his colleague and the guests that were starting to open up to the idea.

In no less than 10 minutes everyone was seated and strapped in, behind the black panels on the walls were engineers and members of the Task Force who were designated to monitor the test. Momiji thanked everyone again and gave a signal with his hand, motioning for all the pod doors to close and the lights to dim slightly in the room. Having been one of the first people to enter a pod I managed to sneak a glance at Momiji as my pod door closed, a sense of commitment was clearly evident.

The pods were rather comfortable, the cushy material they relaxed on was better than any gaming chair and small speakers were relaying Mario Bros music for our enjoyment. I found myself quickly relaxing, pushing away the doubts that were trying to warn me of what may happen. A few minutes passed and nothing happened, the music changed from a classic song to one from the new Smash Bros game, then out of nowhere it stopped and Momiji's voice came from the speakers.

"Thank you for being patient, we will momentarily start the Neural-Net devices. If you start feeling sleepy, don't worry as it is a standard procedure when this happens."

The music came back on, this time it was a waltz of the sea level from the original Super Mario game. The music swayed, to and fro, melding with our senses as it slowly distorted, our vision getting darker as well drifted into a forced state of sleep.

In the main control room the Chief was supervising everything.

"Start the virtual suspension program and initiate the fusion protocol."

* * *

><p>In attack had been successful. Not only had the armies of Toads managed to push back the players, but the GM's and even Administrators found there was nothing they could do apart from close the servers, a n action that could cripple business for them. So as any company would do, they played it out as if it was a game-wide event, in mere hours banners had popped up around the internet inviting players to take part in a new war event that the game was hosting.<p>

In their defence, this action worked.

More and more players logged in, the fight slowly equalising as the brigade of Toads started falling back, their numbers slowly dropping. Support came from the skies in the form of Para-Toads or Para-Goombah's as the humans saw them. In new Hyrule legions of Gibdo's, Wolfos and even Gerudo commando units were ambushing players, but drew back as the numbers of humans quickly rose.

The Space Pirates had it easier. Not as many players were at a high enough level and those that were could not stand a chance against the experienced nature of the Space Pirate Militia.

A player by the name of Ilaria had teamed up with another female player called Sasha. Both were healers from different races but used their magic to constantly support each other, effectively nullifying any damage their opponents could do to them. This worked well for the first 8 waves of Pirates, each one falling to Sasha's elemental attacks or Illaria's close combat style of fighting.

Then something strange happened.

One of the pirates approached without attacking, it's build was smaller than that of the ones around and it carried a weird device it's hand. Shaped like a gun, the device was gold in colour and seemingly pulsed in the pirates hand. It raised the weapon and aimed it at Ilaria, but before it could fire Sasha jumped in the way and raised a barrier made of ice. The shot fired, at first nothing happened then a black energy shot from the barrel of the gun and bypassed the shield completely, engulfing Sasha. Illaria watched in shock as her partner froze for a second before moving again, only this time her actions were too natural and too frightened to be in-game action.

"Wha...what's happening?" she stammered, turning to face her partner.

Illaria was confused, she didn't know what to say and never saw another space pirate coming as it jumped in the air towards Sasha. Her face changed from one of fright to one of shock as she looked at the blade that pierced her body. In seconds she dropped to the ground, the other Pirates watching in fascination as her death was different to the others.

"Cold..." she mumbled as her vision faded.

Illaria stepped back before regaining her composure, she quickly checked Sasha's stats and where her Health and Mana were supposed to be were random symbols that she could not recognise. Taking her hands away from the controller she was using she scratched her head in confusion, only to realise that the same pirate before with the gun had already aimed the gun at her avatar.

He fired.

* * *

><p>The attack had been going on for hours now and there was no sign of the targets. The three had been waiting for some time now, the location that the group were supposed to drop into was still empty. In reality the area was on a completely different server to that of the rest of the game, however a portal had been made specifically by Nemesis himself to connect the ruins of Old Hyrule to this place.<p>

The area was serene. A field that expanded infinitely in every direction, the hills were like green waves in a ocean where trees were stars. In the sky, the multiple shades of blue, orange and purple melded with the trio of suns that were rising in the sky. Each one a pale yellow in the horizon as day started to befall the place.

"How much longer do we need to wait?" a gruff voice asked.

The man was huge, his form standing rigid against the faint breeze. He wore a bronze suit of armour, covering his whole body. Not a glance of the man underneath could be seen, not even through his helmet which was shaped like a King Dodongo. He staff was firmly planted into the ground, as rigid as he was. The man growled in annoyance as his question went unanswered.

"Calm down," another voice spoke "They'll be here soon."

This one was different than the last, his voice much lighter and more relaxed as he sat against an oak tree. He wore light silver armour, trims of green and black decorated the suit in a royal fashion. His bow, resting next to him was decorated in a similar fashion.

"You need to be more relaxed Cain," he spoke again, yawning slightly as he snuggled further into his position at the tree.

"You are too relaxed Argus," Cain retorted, "you should be more proactive like our leader."

Argus laughed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, strands of blonde hair being swept to the side of his face. The two bickered for a few more moments, Cain quick to remind his partner that they were here on an important mission.

"I know," Argus replied, "After all we have a Kingdom to recover"

His words were pained, Cain knew his brother meant well, even if his methods were more relaxed. The man turned to watch the rising of the 2nd sun, his armour glowing warmly in the light of the sunrise. The air around them suddenly stopped, as if the land itself was giving them a message. Cain turned back towards Argus as he grabbed his bow. Both stood next to each other as a third form dropped from the tree above.

The last of the trio wore a white armour. The plating itself was rather simple, yet effectively looking like holy battle clothing. It fit rather tightly, no gap in its protection, yet light enough to not weigh the wearer down. A sword was strapped to the Holy Knights side, it's design was as simple as expected yet felt otherworldly as it seemingly phased in and out of existence. In fact the helmet was one of the only extravagant pieces of the Knights armour, shaped in form of a Dragon and trimmed with lines of gold.

"What are your orders?" Argus asked.

The Knight removed her helmet, allowing her black hair to fall as she stretched her neck to the left and right. She eyed her two followers briefly, looking at her surroundings which hadn't changed in the last 5 hours they had spent watching over the place.

"Let's go!"

* * *

><p>Author Note:<p>

I know I haven't updated in a while, I've been much busier than I expected but finally the next chapter is out! More hints as to what may happen in chapters to follow as well as new characters both mine and from others. To help people understand later there are certainly more than 2 factions of people in this story, the bad guys may not be the bad guys too. The next chapter will focus on our double agent and the interaction between our three Knights and the Smashers.


End file.
